


The Wind Between

by VR_Trakowski



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, WIP Big Bang 2016, not overly graphic though, some violence, watch me make stuff up!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VR_Trakowski/pseuds/VR_Trakowski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Caine and Jupiter met a different way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, they don't belong to me. Finished for the 2016 WIP Big Bang. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to [FlorentineQuill](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorentineQuill/works) and [Cincoflex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cincoflex/pseuds/cincoflex) for betaing and general reassurance! All mistakes are solely mine. 
> 
> (Due to my own inadequacies, this is being posted in haste. I reserve the right to go back in and make corrections for a while.)
> 
> WIP Big Bang fanart by the amazing [red_b_rackham](http://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/pseuds/red_b_rackham) [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/WIPBigBang2016/works/7477392) XD Go look, it's wonderful!!

It would have been simpler if they’d killed him.

It wasn’t that Caine would rather have been dead; death was easy to achieve, it was living that was hard. But he had to wonder, sometimes, what irrational, stubborn part of him insisted on survival even when he had absolutely nothing to make life bearable.

But leisure time for philosophizing was rare in the Deadland, and it hurt in a dull way to think about it, so he tried not to. There was plenty else to take his attention; the endless scrabbling for water, for shelter, for what little food there was, for one’s own life among the murderous and the cruel. Fortunately for him--if it was fortune--he was well-equipped to survive under the dim little sun that shone on this chilly gray world.

Not _thrive_ \--no one did that here, at least for long--but he was still alive and uncaught, wasn’t he? Not killed outright, not captured and tortured for fun or pleasure. True, it came at the draining cost of constant alertness, of the willingness to deal brutality or death at need, of the cold pragmatism that meant setting traps for pursuers or looting bodies. There was no other way to survive in the Deadland, save joining one of the rare stable groups of semi-sane fellow-prisoners, and none of _them_ would accept _him._

Caine didn’t care. He worked best solo anyway.

He’d long since lost track of how long he’d been there. When your sentence is lifelong, you don’t count the days.

He crouched in the lee of a rock outcrop, squinting against the dust raised by the wind, and listened for pursuit before slipping out onto the sand to make for the next sheltered spot. There were often pursuers, and even if there weren’t, Caine knew someone was always considering him for their next target. He possessed tempting prizes--a torn and filthy coat, and a clumsy axe he’d made out of a sharpened stone and someone’s femur--but he knew an attacker would just as quickly kill him for his shirt (what was left of it) or his boots.

 _Hell, some of them would kill me for dinner._ There wasn’t any real revulsion at the thought, just a weary acknowledgment that he himself hadn’t been pushed that far.

Yet.

The next group of rocks were big enough to form a bit of a maze, and Caine slipped inside without hesitation; his nose and ears told him no one was lurking within. At least--he halted, lidding his eyes to sift the dry scent of stone--no one his size…

He ghosted through the narrow passageway despite the depth of its shadows, listening, testing the air. Just around the next corner--

He whipped around the spur of rock and snatched at movement. A screech, a slice of pain in his hand, a swing of his arm, and the verm’s narrow skull crunched against the wall. Caine let out a breath and grinned in triumph; it weighed almost a kilo. Verm were rare, unless you went into the ruins of the old city, and most prisoners who did never came back out. There were a hundred stories as to why, but Caine didn’t know which might be true, and he didn’t care. He just stayed away from it.

He switched the carcass to his other hand and licked the blood from the bite it had inflicted, still listening hard. The rock had probably muffled the screech, but if it hadn’t others would come looking. He could linger and eat, or he could try to find a safer spot.

 _If I eat now, no one can take it from me._ And it had been a long time since he’d had fresh meat.

A smaller rock, honed to a fair edge and carried in his pocket, let him skin the verm quickly and remove what few bits he was unwilling to eat. He consumed the rest as fast as he could, still warm and fresh, snapping the small bones for their marrow. The taste was bitter and gamey, but he’d long since stopped caring.

When he was done, Caine wrapped the remnants in the skin and put the bundle in his pocket, then scrubbed the blood and grease from his hands with sand. The offal could be used to bait a trap for another verm, should he be lucky enough to spot sign of one.

Then he slipped out of the rocks as silently as he’d entered them, heading uphill with the wind at his back. The last time he’d been this way, there had been a good-sized hollow where rainwater had collected. It was worth checking again.

* * *

 

_PRISON COLONY WORLD 12-938338EDSK33298_

_COMMONLY KNOWN AS “THE DEADLAND”_

_FORMER SITE OF FARMWORLD EDSKED IV, DAISANTO FAMILY LTD._

_THIS FARMWORLD SUFFERED CATASTROPHIC FAILURE DUE TO SOCIETAL MISMANAGEMENT. ITS INHABITANTS DEPLOYED A LETHAL BIOWEAPON THAT DESTROYED MOST OF THE PLANET’S SPECIES. THE AEGIS WAS FORCED TO STERILIZE THE BIOSPHERE._

_NOW USED AS A PENAL COLONY SUITABLE FOR OXYGEN-BREATHING OFFENDERS. CLIMATE ON PRISON CONTINENT IS TEMPERATE DESERT._

_FOLLOWS STANDARD PENAL COLONY PROCEDURES: NO CONFINEMENT. REGULAR DROPS OF FOOD AND MEDICINE. PROMPT RETRIEVAL OF PRISONERS WHOSE SENTENCES ARE SERVED IN FULL._

_CURRENT POPULATION: APPROXIMATELY 60,000_

_PRISONERS RETRIEVED DURING LIFE OF COLONY: 22_

* * *

 

He was being stalked. It was nothing new, and Caine found it more irritating than alarming, but he kept moving all the same; there was no good cover in this particular stretch of low hills, and no place to attack _from,_ either. He couldn’t see his pursuers, but he could hear them, faint on his trail.

 _Three, maybe four_.

The near-constant wind was against him at the moment, but he doubted they possessed senses enhanced enough to pick up his scent. In all the time he’d been in the Deadland, he’d never met another of his kind--any Splice guilty of a crime serious enough to be sent here would usually be executed outright.

The only reason _he_ was here was because Stinger had--

Caine flinched away from the thought, the retreat as habitual as the pain now, and kept going, his pace a steady not-quite-jog. Odds were he could wear his pursuers out; he was in better shape than most of the prisoners for this kind of travel.

But the land was getting rougher, and he found himself with fewer and fewer choices in direction. When the one negotiable path narrowed down into a steep-sided valley, Caine cursed himself for carelessness. _They’re **herding** me. _

He glared up at the rock walls as he picked up speed. If he’d still had his wings he could have been up and out within seconds. _Hell, if my boots still had a charge I could death-drop them._

But if wishes were feathers, he’d still be flying. Caine pulled his axe from the loop that held it on his frayed belt and started looking for a place to make a stand.

There were no good choices, but eventually he found a narrow ledge that was just big enough to hold him and just low enough that he could jump and pull himself up onto it. It was starting to get dark and a surprising number of people never thought to look _up,_ but even if they did spot him he’d at least have the advantage of height.

He didn’t have long to wait before they appeared around the last bend. It wasn’t four, it was _five_ , one carrying a crude club. And two of them moved with the economic grace of training. Caine scowled, and held still.

They almost passed him by; just as the last man came abreast of his spot, one of them glanced up. Caine didn’t hesitate; he dropped from the ledge with the precision of inbred talent, kicking one pursuer in the head and then landing on the shoulders of another like a ton of rock.

The fight was messy and brutal. Caine had heard the crunch of bone when his kick had connected--skull or neck made no difference, the man was down and still--but that left four, and while he’d had worse odds in his career there were no medics here, and no one to watch his back. He traded blows and kicks, ducking some but not others, spinning constantly to keep them from getting him from behind. One blow of his axe caved ribs; as the man reeled away the shortest of them grabbed the haft, yanking desperately. Instead of pulling back, Caine stepped forward, catching the man’s hair in his free hand, and jerked his opponent’s head to one side so he could tear his throat out.

There was blood everywhere, after that, and he was getting desperately tired; he hadn’t had more than a mouthful to eat in three days.

 _You screwed up,_ a dispassionate voice said under the split-second judgments and the countermoves, the bursts of pain and the rasp of breath. _You should have engaged them sooner._

Caine gave it a mental rude gesture, which was all the attention he had to spare, and was just starting to wonder if his sentence was finally coming to an end when a familiar roar echoed over the valley.

“It’s a drop!” one attacker gasped. “Close!”

The tallest one snarled, wavered, and then threw his club directly at Caine’s head. Caine managed to block it, barely, and by the time he straightened the two of them were running back the way they’d come, up and over the edge of the valley. The third, whose ribs he’d broken, was limping slowly behind.

Caine didn’t follow. Ration drops, even randomized, inevitably became lethal riots, since the delivery ships didn’t bother to stealth in. Prisoners would be rushing in from all over, and there would be bodies on the ground before the ship even left atmosphere.

Besides, he was exhausted. Caine spat out blood and wiped his mouth, wishing for water; humans tasted worse than verm.

The two men left behind were both dead, one from his blow to the head and one from his bite. Caine crouched wearily, too inured to pain to notice much, and turned the second one over. He hated using his teeth, particularly after--what had happened--but instinct added it to his arsenal and biting was better than dead.

Slowly, he started searching the bodies.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The ship almost landed on top of him.

Caine was curled up in the shadow of something that might once have been the wall of a building, a very long time ago. It was far closer to the ruins than he wanted to be, but a fresh delivery of prisoners had included a pair of brothers who had strength, charisma, and a taste for sadism--a bad combination. They’d collected the usual following of the weak and desperate almost at once, and while Caine knew that their coalescing gang was by nature unstable and would eventually implode, at the moment it was growing. And they were looking for targets.

A disgraced Skyjacker Splice with no allies was just about perfect.

He’d been pushed almost to the limits of territory he was familiar with, and Caine was considering, with some irritation, venturing out into the less hospitable areas, but it was a risk. There were no food drops further out, and nothing for verm to live on; he’d have to find another prisoner area and try to survive on its fringe.

The notion didn’t hold much appeal, but neither did staying. The only other option he could think of, besides just stepping off the nearest cliff, was entering the ruins proper, and he _really_ didn’t want to do that. The smells that wafted out of there were just _weird._

He was almost asleep, but you slept light in the Deadland or you didn’t wake up, so the hum of a ship drive brought him alert the second he heard it. And the sound had him rolling up into a crouch, because it wasn’t a drop ship. In fact, it sounded a lot like a pinnace.

 _That makes no fucking sense._ The Deadland was strictly off-limits to privately-owned ships, and no one in their right minds would be landing in something so small anyway; it couldn’t possibly carry enough personnel to protect its passengers from the convicts.

But his ears insisted, and then a gust of wind nearly knocked him over as the ship swept past overhead-- _close_.

It was veiled, but veiling didn’t work so well when a ship landed on anything less than solid ground; Caine could see the sand blow up and then compress as the pinnace settled down, maybe a few hundred meters away.

He stared at it for several minutes, puzzled, but no patrol cruiser followed it down. Nor did a crowd appear, looking for food; Caine figured that the quieter engine might have escaped notice for the moment, particularly outside of the usual drop zones. _But that won’t last._

Maybe it was joyriding rich kids, someone daring a prison planet on a bet. Maybe it was just someone who was incredibly lost.

_Maybe...it’s a way out._

He’d never bothered to think about escaping, because a gravity well was just about the perfect cell. But if Caine could get inside that ship, he stood a chance of going with it when it took off--and if he could just get out of the Deadland…

He sprinted for the pinnace.

The ship powered down when he was halfway there, the veiling shutting down with it, and Caine put on more speed, knowing that sooner or later someone else would come to investigate. A ship’s hull, even an unarmored one, was pretty much impervious to anything less than power tools, but there were plenty of people in the Deadland who knew how to get around locks.

The main hatch was set between the front landing struts. Caine ducked around the nearest strut and started looking for the airlock controls, wondering if he was about to get shot for daring to go near the thing. He didn’t mean any harm to the passengers, but-- _I don’t exactly look like the welcoming committee._ Filthy, ragged, and dangerous, just like all the others.

The controls were standard. Caine tapped the hatch panel, and was really rather surprised when the airlock irised open. _What’s wrong with these people that they didn’t even secure it?_

But his first cautious step inside told him why. The miasma of illness was so strong he almost choked; illness and death.

For a long second Caine hesitated. But he was a Splice, immune to many diseases and resistant to many more; and the outside was a death sentence, it always had been.

_You knew this was a gamble. The stakes are still the same._

Slowly, Caine moved through the airlock, then turned to close and _lock_ it.

The interior looked--normal, like any other luxury passenger ship, plush and overdecorated. The lights were on full, but Caine couldn’t hear anyone moving.

He cleared his throat. It had been so long since he’d actually spoken (aside from the occasional curse) that he wasn’t quite sure how his voice would sound. “Hello?”

The only answer was a moan, so weak that ears less sharp than his wouldn’t have heard it. Caine raised his hands, palms out, and walked slowly out of the hatch room and towards the control deck. “Is anyone here?”

The smell was worse in the control deck. A human female was slumped over the main console, eyes closed; Caine looked around, but there was no one else on the deck and he couldn’t hear movement elsewhere. Judging from the odor... _There may not be anybody else. Any longer._

The woman didn’t move as Caine approached her cautiously. Her breathing was thick and harsh, and when Caine touched her arm the heat rising from her skin was palpable, even through the ornate sleeve.

Caine shook her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

Swollen eyes cracked open, and the woman peered up at him, too sick to be alarmed at the sight of a criminal Splice dressed in rags and dirt. She mumbled something Caine couldn’t make out.

Caine sighed. _You were probably infected the second you got in here,_ he told himself, and bent to pick the woman up. If he remembered pinnace layout correctly, there was a little seating room behind the control deck...

There was. He laid the woman down on the nearest lounge and crouched down for a better look. She had light skin, elaborately dressed dark hair, and the smooth youthful look of someone who could afford ReCell whenever they wanted it; but her face was livid and creased, and she reeked of sickness. _Rich, but not Entitled, thank stars...dehydrated, fever probably critical..._ Caine could hear her heartbeat, rapid and uneven. _Not good._

He straightened, and the woman raised one hand to paw at him. “Water,” she said hoarsely. “Water?”

Caine stepped away to find the galley and fill a glass. Normally he wouldn’t have spared a moment of attention for anyone with this much money, but if he was going to beg or force a ride it only seemed right to help if he could. _Though I don’t know if I can do much. I wonder where the medkit is--_

He was only gone a couple of minutes, but when he got back the woman was unconscious again. Caine lifted her up and tried to make her drink, but the water just dribbled out of her mouth and Caine was afraid of making her choke. He laid her down again and set the glass on the floor. “I need to look around,” he said, more for the novelty of speaking than because he thought he would be heard.

 _Because one way or another this ship needs to lift. **Soon.**_ If the convicts didn’t show up, the Aegis would, and either way he’d be grounded, or dead.

The pinnace wasn’t a big ship as such craft went, but it was big enough that it took him a few minutes to search it. Engine room, empty; communal room, empty; two private suites, one empty.

One not.

Caine stood in the doorway of the other and tried to breathe shallowly. Both the occupants of the suite were past helping, one probably recently; he lay stretched out on the floor. The other had been dead for at least a day, maybe longer, and floated in the antigrav field, bobbing slightly as the air circulated.

The ship’s medikit was disemboweled on the floor next to the fresher corpse. Caine went to pick through it, but he couldn’t find anything that might have been of use to the sick woman; whatever drugs that might have helped were used up, and there was no ReCell left either. _They must have been desperate._ ReCell didn’t work well on this kind of sudden sickness.

Caine grimaced, and went back out, careful to close the door behind him.

The woman was still unconscious. Caine looked her over, trying to touch her as little as possible, and filched a robe from the empty suite to cover her, but her heartbeat was fading. Caine had seen a lot of people die in his lifetime, and he was pretty sure she was about to add to the tally.

Shaking his head, he went to lift the ship.

* * *

 

_PINNACE: PRIVATE EXO/ENDO-ATMOSPHERIC CRAFT, LUXURY CLASS. SYSTEM DRIVE, PORTAL GENERATOR, UNARMED. UPGRADES SUCH AS VEIL, LEVEL ONE WEAPONRY, FASTER DRIVE, EXTRA CARGO SPACE CAN BE ADDED._

_USED AS PERSONAL TRANSPORT; OFTEN THE CHOICE OF SMUGGLERS AND PIRATES._

* * *

 

Caine hadn’t flown a luxury ship before, but the controls were fairly standard; as it rose through the atmosphere, still veiled, he ran back through the ship logs, trying to figure out how a trio of wealthy, dying people had ended up on a prison planet without attracting Aegis attention. He hadn’t had time to check the cargo hold yet, but he was starting to wonder if they were smuggling something.

It didn’t matter to him; what he needed was a place to go that would let him get far enough away from the ship to be untraceable, because sooner or later someone was going to come looking for it. _There’s too much money here for it not to be noticed._

The chime of the console made him start, and Caine slapped at the screen control; climbing up around the curve of the planet was the bulk of an Aegis cruiser. He swore vilely. The cruiser wouldn’t be able to _see_ the pinnace, but there were other ways to track a veiled ship, and even if they were only coming in to investigate an unauthorized landing, it wouldn’t take them long to pick up his trail. _And this ship has **no** weapons. _

He glanced at the location readout. It was extremely dangerous to set a portal in atmosphere, but the pinnace had just about cleared the exosphere, and while portaling would light up the Aegis screens like a beacon, they wouldn’t be able to trace him right away.

 _No time to figure out someplace to go--_ His fingers flew over the console, calling up the pinnace’s recent travel and reversing its course. The computer set the portal for him, and it blossomed in front of the ship, pulling it in like a flowerface devouring prey. Caine got one last glimpse of the Aegis cruiser veering towards them, and then the pinnace was passing through and he had to grit his teeth against a wash of nausea.

A few seconds later, the pinnace was spat out into normal space. Caine swallowed hard, blinked to clear his vision, and focused on the viewscreen.

A planet floated in the viewport, blue and white, vivid as a gem. Caine eyed it warily, and waved up locality information. _FARMWORLD SOL III, ABRASAX INDUSTRIES. STATUS: TERTIARY. TECHNOLOGY LEVEL: 8._ The console added data about its climate and displayed a changing parade of inhabitants who looked pure human.

_What were those three doing on a tertiary farmworld?_

Well, standing and staring wouldn’t tell him much. Caine put the pinnace into a parking orbit, making sure to set the console to evade anything that was floating around the planet; Level 8 meant that the locals had managed to achieve primitive space travel, at least. _They’ll be Harvested soon,_ he thought without much interest. _Can’t let them get out of their system._

He trudged back to the seating area. The log had told him that the ship’s inhabitants had spent several weeks on the planet; whatever they were sick with, they’d probably picked it up there. _Might be able to get her some help down there._

But when he crouched next to the woman, he realized that there was no need any longer.

A little regretfully, Caine closed the still eyelids. She’d probably been too far gone before the ship had even made its landing, but he would have liked to have helped her out of gratitude, as involuntary as her service had been. Still, he’d seen enough death to know that it wasn’t significant.

It just was.

He gathered her up one more time and carried her to the occupied suite, laying her down next to the body on the floor and doing his best to ignore the smell. He collected the remnants of the medikit to take with him, then stepped back out to the corridor and closed the door.

His hand hesitated over the control panel for a long moment; at last he overrode the safeties and told the room to seal and evacuate its atmosphere. Vacuum would be better than letting them rot, and either way Caine wasn’t planning on staying with the pinnace. Eventually someone would find them and deal with the bodies.

Then he programmed life support to refresh the atmosphere-- _That’ll help with the smell--_ and finally, _finally_ , went to investigate the galley.

The array of choices was dizzying--calling up the menu on the little dining table produced a long list of items Caine had never even heard of. He stabbed at things more or less at random, mouth watering uncontrollably, and shifted impatiently from foot to foot while the galley prepared them. It had been at least a day since he’d had anything to eat, and most of his last meal had been crumbs and scraps scavenged from what passed as a trash heap in the Deadland. Caine knew he had to move the ship soon, before someone managed to track the pinnace back to its current location, but he was, quite literally, starving.

Fruit, a meat dish with some exotic sauce, vegetables he didn’t recognize, fancy bread--Caine barely let the hot things cool before shoveling them into his mouth. They all tasted _amazing_ , and he lost himself for a little while in the sheer pleasure of filling his senses and his shrunken stomach with food he’d never tasted before. His Splice metabolism let him eat far more than a pure human could after lasting so long on so little, but he still had to stop himself from calling up more when he’d scraped and licked the last molecules from the plates. There was no point in losing all he’d just eaten.

He shoved the utensils in the cycler and went back to the unoccupied suite. Now that his stomach was full, he could tend to the rest of him.

The image in the suite’s mirror made him blink. Caine knew he was in bad shape, but the filthy, emaciated ghoul-scare staring back at him was hardly recognizable. His hair was long and matted, his face was gray with dirt, and his clothes were rags, hanging on his bones like the tattered banners of some defeated army.

Bemused, he scratched his cheek, then shrugged and pulled off his boots. _I must have been there longer than I thought._ Setting them on the power plate to clean and recharge only took a moment; then he stripped off the rest of his clothes and left them where they fell.

The suite had a ‘fresher in keeping with its luxury; it used real water. Caine scrubbed himself thoroughly, let the ‘fresher dry him as well, and padded naked to the suite’s dresser. The machine read his height and shape, took the requirements he punched in, and shortly disgorged what he had requested--clothes as close to his old Skyjacker outfit as he could get without visiting a Legion depot. They didn’t have the armor layer, or the stealthing shell, but they were tough, waterproof, whole--and _clean_.

There was a groomer tool too, but Caine had never used one and didn’t want to spend the time learning how. His beard was programmed to a particular length--a conceit of his Splicer--but a bit of ribbon tied his hair back until he could deal with the tangles.

He searched the ship quickly and thoroughly, less interested in its cargo than in weapons he could use. The crates in the hold seemed to hold nothing but jugs of some amber liquid, so he passed them by in favor of breaking open the weapons locker.

The contents made him snarl in contempt--lightweight and poorly maintained--but they were better than nothing. Rummaging through the drawers of the suite turned up an ornamental dagger with a surprisingly sharp blade; that was better, and he hooked it on his belt without hesitation. He also found a number of items that a legitimate pleasure craft really had no reason to be carrying, including a comm scrambler and a iriser. Caine pocketed several; the iriser was in fact Legion-issue, and he wondered dryly where they’d got it--or from whom.

And then it was time to decide what to do next.

Caine returned to the control deck to look out at the tertiary world and think. Never in his life had he had any kind of choice about his own future, and now that it was in his hands he was blanking on what to _do_ with it. It was a helpless feeling and he didn’t like it, but the array of possibilities was simultaneously unmanageably huge, and frightening.

The pinnace was capable of taking him almost anywhere he could think of, from the civilized arms of the local galaxies to the empty spaces between. There were plenty of border systems where an escaped convict could disappear into the shadows, though he’d have to keep looking over his shoulder, because once the Aegis figured out what had happened they’d put a fat bounty on his head. The pinnace could be abandoned, or even sold, though he’d have to find the right buyer since it was very traceable--

How _did_ people make this kind of decision? Maybe he was just incapable of it, not only engineered to be compliant but to be unable to take true control of his life--

The console chimed again, and Caine bared his teeth in astonishment and fury. _How did they find me so fast?_

There was an Aegis cruiser coming in--the same one or another, he didn’t know--and while nobody had come on the comm to demand surrender, he knew they would sniff out the pinnace very soon.

Skyjackers did not panic. But Caine’s fingers nearly slipped as he shoved his hands into the control field and aimed the pinnace at the pretty world’s nearest continent.

He chose the biggest city he could find in a quick scan, and as the ship dropped into the lower atmosphere he hurried to bundle the spare clothes he’d generated around the remnants of the medikit and all the emergency rations the galley held. Slinging the package to his back, he uploaded the planet’s major languages into his translation implant, programmed the navigational computer hastily, then opened the back hatch and dove into the sky.

Activating his recharged boots, he skated away from the pinnace, glancing back to see its distortion waver and disappear. It would skim the planet’s surface until it reached the night side, then lift out of atmosphere and portal away with just enough splash that the Aegis would detect it. And then do it again, and again--and by the time they caught up with it and deciphered its logs, Caine would hopefully have vanished into the tercie population and become untraceable. Even spending the rest of his life on a farmworld was orders of magnitude better than the Deadland.

Caine sniffed the air with wary interest, and set his face towards the city crowding the horizon. _Let’s see what’s out there._

* * *

 

_AEGIS: PUBLIC FORCE CHARGED WITH UPHOLDING HUMAN LAW. BASED OUT OF ORUS. KNOWN FOR EFFICIENCY AND RUTHLESSNESS. THE AEGIS HAS SUMMARY POWERS TO EXECUTE LEGAL PENALTIES WHEN NECESSARY._

_ORUS: HOMEWORLD OF HUMANITY AND THE CENTER OF GOVERNMENT, KNOWN AS “THE CROWN JEWEL”. SEE SUBSIDIARY SECTIONS FOR INFORMATION ON GEOGRAPHY, POPULATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND HISTORY._

* * *

 

By nightfall he was deep in the heart of the place, choking a little on the vehicle fumes but also tasting the tang of the freshwater sea nearby. Caine was belatedly grateful that his hair was long enough to hide his ears--he was getting enough dismayed stares as it was. These tercies all looked pure human, just like the pinnace’s info display, and he kept his mouth firmly shut lest his teeth attract even more attention.

He was also dismayingly tired. It didn’t make sense--all he’d done the last twelve hours was travel a few miles, almost nothing compared to a usual day in the Deadland--but perhaps it was all the changes, and having enough food for once. But Caine knew that he would have to find a place to hole up in soon, and now that he was _clean_ again the idea of going to ground in one of the dark slots between the buildings of this city didn’t hold much appeal.

You didn’t get into the Skyjackers by being stupid, though. Caine spent an hour or two walking and observing the patterns around him, and eventually decided on one of the quieter, less trafficked areas. The building he picked required some kind of passcode to enter in front, but he didn’t plan to go in that way anyway. Instead he used his boots to circle up through the air, passing window after window and stretching his senses, listening and scenting for an area that had no inhabitants.

Caine knew that the use of galactic tech would have alerted Keepers to his presence--it was a farmworld, of course it had Keepers--but their brief was to maintain secrecy among the native population. They wouldn’t report him to Abrasax Industries unless he did something really disruptive. And he had no intention of standing out that much.

Most of the rooms behind the windows were occupied, either with people or with the odors of recent life, but about halfway up the building he found one that was dark and silent and stale. Caine landed lightly on the balcony and fished out the iriser, reflecting that he hadn’t expected to need it so soon; it opened the glass door for him handily, and he passed through the temporary hole without a qualm.

The interior was almost as luxurious as the pinnace. Nobody had been there in at least a week; the thin trace of scent on the air was oddly pleasant, but so faint as to be almost undetectable. Caine closed the hole and retrieved the iriser, and prowled through the various rooms, not turning on any lights. He could see well enough.

It was the sort of place he’d only seen on rare occasions, doing an odd bit of guard duty here and there between missions. Plush carpeting, lots of space, furniture that looked like it was made to last, though all of it was primitive enough to have legs. There was a lot of art, and a lot of shelves full of the antique paper bundles called _books_ ; three of the rooms held beds, but Caine didn’t think more than two people actually occupied the space on a regular basis.

He found the food-prep area and raided that. There wasn’t much to be had, at least that he recognized enough to know how to make it edible, but frozen things (what an odd way to preserve food) warmed up quickly enough and it was all much, much better than verm.

Caine cleaned up after himself, bundling the trash to be disposed of later, and went back to the biggest bedroom. It had an attached ‘fresher with some really primitive plumbing, but he took advantage of the shower with pleasure, reveling in the ability to _stay_ clean.

When he was dry and dressed, Caine sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, but it was far too soft and giving after years of sand and rock, so he dragged off the covers and lay down between the bed and the wall, rolling himself up in the cloth and closing his eyes. He knew he should make some kind of plan--who knew when the inhabitants would be returning, for instance--but he was so _tired_.

* * *

 

The nightmares came. He’d always had them, as far back as he could remember--cold and misery and terrible loneliness--but these were hot and hallucinatory. Caine threw off the covers in a haze of sweat, remembering the wrench of sudden rage and the slippery spray of blood, but not the face, he couldn’t remember the face and he was so _thirsty_ \--

At some point he managed to climb to his feet and stagger towards the nearest source of water. It was day now, and the light coming in the window made him a monster in the mirror-glass, red-eyed and red-faced and wild, but all he cared about was cupping his hands under the flow of wetness that tasted so harsh and drinking it down. But no matter how much he drank, he couldn’t slay his thirst. He had swallowed a star, that was it, and it was burning him out from inside, it would turn him into a hollow shell and blow him away as a puff of ash--

He fell onto the carpet and tried to crawl back to his hole, but he couldn’t see to get there any more.


	3. Chapter 3

_I hate my life._

Jupiter trudged down the long alley towards the Birchmere’s service door, pulling the industrial vacuum behind her and counting the ways her life really sucked right now. _For starters, I’m working on a Saturday._

But she still owed Vassily for her last advance, and he always collected. So instead of relaxing or shopping or hanging out with friends, Jupiter was headed up the service elevator to go over a too-fucking-big apartment.

 _At least it’s empty,_ she told herself. _The Whitneys won’t be back until Christmas, so it’s not like the place gets dirty._ Though it was beyond her understanding why anyone would want to come back to Chicago in the middle of _winter_.

The service door complained, but opened to her key. Jupiter hauled the vacuum inside, letting her bucket of cleaning supplies smack against the doorframe, and punched the button for the elevator. It wasn’t just working on the weekend; it was the fact that she couldn’t ever see herself doing anything _else._

 _I’ll be cleaning houses forever. I’m never going to get out of here_. Not that she had any place she really wanted to get _to_ , unless it was Paris with an unlimited credit card, and that was half the problem. She had no talent, no dream, nothing that would give her a path out of her rut.

Grumbling, she rode up to the Whitneys’ floor and walked down to their door, unlocking it with no trouble and pulling everything inside. Nino would pick her up in two hours, and there wasn’t that much work to be done with no one there, but there wasn’t so much as a Dunkin’ Donuts within walking distance, so she would have nothing to do when she was finished but wait. The Whitneys were old, too; even their closets were boring.

 _At least I have my tunes._ Her earbuds were firmly in place, because sometimes music was the only thing that made the drudgery bearable, and Jupiter cranked up the sound as she closed the door behind her. Leaving the vacuum by the door for later, she pulled the duster from her bucket and started running it over the bookshelves.

A week wasn’t much time for dust to gather so it didn’t take long, and she moved into the master bedroom singing under her breath.

And nearly tripped over the body on the floor.

Jupiter yelped and jumped back, earbuds popping free. “What the _fuck!_ ”

Her first impulse was to run-- _deadbodyewww!--_ but she held still, lowering the duster she’d raised as if it could somehow protect her. She stared wide-eyed at the huge form, wondering who would dump a body in an empty apartment, and then the body _wheezed_.

“You’re still _alive?_ ” she asked idiotically, then gave herself a mental smack. _Duh_.

Stepping gingerly, Jupiter walked around the body’s legs to get a look at its face. Which was mostly hidden by a tangle of blondish hair, but it was definitely a guy. One wearing huge clunky boots and dark pants and a weird-looking shirt that was half-unfastened, exposing most of a wide ribby chest and a lot of freckles.

Jupiter looked down at him warily, still clutching the duster wand. “Hey. Dude. What are you doing here?” _You **really** should call the cops,_ her mind told her, but if she did then it would be messy and annoying and possibly dangerous given the whole undocumented thing. _He looks pretty out of it, if I can just get him out into the hallway and call building Security…_

 _...Come to think of it, how’d he get in?_ The door hadn’t looked damaged when she’d opened it.

The man groaned, and wheezed again. One of the outflung hands twitched; a big hand, but the wrist was thin and bony. Jupiter’s eyes narrowed. _Is this guy a tweaker? He looks like he hasn’t eaten in weeks._

But she’d seen tweakers before, and something about him didn’t match--for one thing, he was clean, the smell of soap was rising off him. Jupiter dropped to one knee, intending to shake his shoulder, but instead she found herself pushing the hair off his face.

He looked--odd, somehow, in a way she couldn’t quite pin down, but the ferocious heat of his skin and the flush on his face told her what was wrong. “Crap, you’re _sick_.”

Bouncing to her feet, she ran into the master bath and ran cold water on a washcloth, sticking the duster awkwardly under one arm as she wrung the cloth out enough so it wouldn’t drip. Hurrying back, she wondered if she should call 911 anyway, for an ambulance, but shoved the thought aside for the moment.

When she laid the washcloth on his forehead, his eyes snapped open, bloodshot and wide, and he actually _snarled._ One hand grabbed her wrist _way_ too tight, but for a second she didn’t notice because he had, no bullshit, _fangs._ Not vampire fangs, but, like, dog teeth or something.

But he fell back when he tried to push upright, blinking dizzily, and her surge of fear receded. “Hey, calm down! I’m only trying to help.”

He muttered something she couldn’t understand. Jupiter tried to twist out of his grasp, then pried up his thumb with her other hand and bent it back until he yelped and let go--Zeno had shown her a trick or two.

“Hell of a grip you’ve got there,” she said, almost at random, and picked up the cloth to lay it back on his forehead. “Just relax, okay?”

His eyes were closed again, and this time he seemed to push forward into the coolness a bit, a furrow forming between his brows. Jupiter shoved his shoulder gently, slowly rolling him onto his back, and hesitated a moment before tossing the duster aside and unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way.

Or trying to, anyway. It seemed to be fastened with magnets, or something like them, and it took her a minute to figure out how to undo them. She spread the shirt wide and went back for another cloth, wiping down his face and chest in an effort to bring down that scary fever.

It was a really _nice_ chest, one corner of her mind observed, if thin, but Jupiter ignored it; perving on a sick guy was, well, sick, and besides he was _weird_.

“I really don’t know what I’m doing,” she informed him as she swiped the cloth across his sternum. “But Mom used to do this for me when I was little, and it always helped.”

He murmured something incomprehensible again--it didn’t sound like any language she knew of--but he wasn’t fighting her. Jupiter left the cloth spread over his chest and took the now-warm one from his forehead, and went back into the bathroom yet again to rummage through the medicine cabinet.

There wasn’t much available, but she found a bottle of ibuprofen and tipped two out, then filled the glass sitting on the sink. When she knelt down beside him, however, Jupiter realized she had a problem. “Um. Big dude. Are you awake enough to sit up for me?”

He didn’t react to her words. Jupiter sighed, slid her arm under his neck, and lifted. “ _Crap,_ you’re heavy.”

It took some doing, but eventually she had him upright enough; still not fully conscious, but when she pressed the pills to his lips he took them in, and then gulped eagerly at the water. She had to refill the glass twice before he slowed down.

She laid him down yet again--her arm was aching--and sat back on her heels to contemplate her fresh new problem.

 _Option one, call 911_. The police would arrest him for trespassing, unless he was a guest of the Whitneys and they’d forgotten to mention it, but Jupiter really didn’t think that was it. An ambulance would take him to the ER, but the police would still get involved. And it was an axiom in the Bolotnikov household: don’t attract police attention.

Option two was to call building Security and say she found an intruder in the apartment. That was much more sensible, because she could be out of the building before the police even arrived. They could still track her down if they wanted to, though.

But somehow it didn’t sit right with her. The guy was sick and helpless; he had no business in the apartment and he might even have been trying to burgle it, but there was something about him and she just didn’t _want_ to.

He stirred, the crease between his brows deepening, and made a soft noise that sounded almost like a whine. One hand groped toward her, and automatically Jupiter reached for it, trying to reassure him.

His fingers wrapped around hers, a gentler grip than before, and he lifted her hand to his face. Remembering those teeth, Jupiter flinched, but his hold tightened, and then he was pressing her inner wrist to his mouth, drawing in a deep breath-- _sniffing_ her?

Jupiter gaped at him, half of her wanting to pull away because this was all just _too_ freaky, and half of her going _okay, that feels really good actually_. The touch of his mouth against her pulse was not erotic, exactly, but somehow intimate--as if he would do that to no one else, ever.

Jupiter shook her head sharply and tugged her hand free. _Now you’re just going over the edge._ The guy whined again, but then went quiet, and she pushed to her feet and went to get a pillow off the bed, tucking it under his head. The bedspread and blanket had been pulled off, and she found them on the other side of the bed, tangled and flattened.

“Why were you sleeping on the _floor?_ ” she asked the air, and pulled loose the sheet to drape over him; she remembered enough about fevers to know that the blanket would be too warm.

Still thinking, Jupiter absently resumed her dusting. _Maybe I should call 911 anyway. If he’s really sick, he could need a hospital_.

Sighing, she moved on to washing the windows; there was no point in running the vacuum with him sleeping, but it wasn’t like the carpet couldn’t wait a week. She took her time, all the while chewing over the problem taking up a decent chunk of the master bedroom’s floor.

He’d raided the fridge, Jupiter found when she went into the kitchen, but at least he was the tidy type--the trash was all bundled together on the counter, as if ready to go out, though it was odd that he hadn’t bothered with the trash can sitting next to the range. Jupiter shrugged and stuffed it in a bag to go next to the vacuum.

When she went back to the master bedroom, the mystery man had thrown off the sheet and rolled onto his stomach. He had a pretty nice ass, too, Jupiter noted, and knelt next to him to pat his shoulder cautiously.

He didn’t react. Jupiter bit her lip, then pushed the matted tangle of hair away from his face again.

He was still hot to the touch, though not as much as earlier, but that wasn’t what made her flinch back, stifling another yelp. His ear...his ear was _pointed._

“Dude, are you an elf, or is that a body mod?” she demanded, though she didn’t expect a response and didn’t get one. She squinted, looking a little closer.

 _If that’s a mod, he must have had elephant ears to start with._ It didn’t look like one; when she ran a tentative fingertip over the surface, it felt--ordinary. Hot and soft and just the slightest bit fuzzy.

It _twitched_. Jupiter snatched her hand back and stared down at him. _This is just getting weirder._

“Normally I’m a rational girl,” she remarked to the still form. “But you’ve got--let’s see. The teeth, the ears, the bizarre shirt. The way you got in here without so much as denting the lock. The fact that, unlike all the guys I’ve _ever_ met, you clean up after yourself.”

From what she could tell, his pants didn’t seem to have pockets. _Maybe he has a key. Or ID, or a phone, or **something** …_

Rising, Jupiter went back around to the blankets on the floor. If _she_ were going to ignore a perfectly good bed and sleep on the floor, she thought, she would have picked a spot with more room, particularly if she were as big as the mystery guy. The far side of the bed had half the space between the bed and the wall than the side where he was now, but--

Jupiter turned and looked back across the room. _But,_ she thought slowly. _Someone down here can’t be seen from the door._

She didn’t really know what that implied about this guy, but nothing she could think of sounded very nice.

Shaking out the blanket and bedspread produced nothing, so she folded them neatly and put them on the mattress for replacement with clean ones, and then knelt again, to lift the dust ruffle and peer under the bed.

_Bingo._

But the stash she pulled out was nothing she was expecting.

The knife in an ornamented sheath was almost normal; it looked like something you could buy at a Renaissance fair, with a carved handle and a sheath with colored stones embedded in it. But there was also a whole bunch of objects she could _not_ figure out, and three odd-shaped guns that looked like toys...but were way too heavy to be made of plastic.

Jupiter turned the smallest one over in her hand, then on impulse aimed it at the wall and pulled the trigger.

It made a low _vwap_ sound, and _something_ burst from the blunt muzzle, she could see it wavering through the air, but whatever it was dissipated almost immediately, and Jupiter nearly dropped the gun in her haste to put it down. A strange smell lingered, sort of electrical.

From the other side of the bed came an angry growl that set her hair on end. Jupiter gulped, then raised her voice. “Um, sorry? It’s okay, I’ll put it back.”

The only reply was a thump. Jupiter peered cautiously around the corner of the bed, but all she could see was one of those hands, lying still on the carpet.

When she got back to his side, he was stretched out as if he’d tried to get up but lost his balance, but when she nudged him cautiously he didn’t move. His mouth was slightly open and Jupiter could see his canine teeth, though the tangle of his hair had fallen back over his ear.

The echo of that growl was still in her ears, but despite that, despite the teeth and the breadth of muscle across his shoulders, he wasn’t _scary_. Just...kind of sad, stuck in somebody else’s apartment and so sick he couldn’t even sit up. Jupiter wondered who might be worrying about him somewhere.

_I wonder if they look as weird as he does._

Either way, she knew now that she couldn’t call the cops. _He’d end up in a lab with scientists slicing him up to see what he’s made of._ The teeth might be caps and the ears a mod, but the guns? Those were just too out there. And _combined_ with his looks meant that--

Well, she didn’t know _what_ it meant, besides nothing good for him if the authorities found out about him.

“Okay,” she said at last, and shook the sheet out to cover him again. “No hospital unless you get a whole lot worse.” Jupiter hesitated, then reached out to stroke his hair gently. He sighed, as if in pleasure, and she found herself smiling.

And planning.

When she pulled out her phone, she yelped at the time displayed. “Crap, Nino’ll be here any minute. Taking care of you sure wrecked my schedule.” Jupiter scrambled to her feet and bent to give him one last pat. “You be good. I’ll be back later.”

She hit the speed-dial as she walked back out to the kitchen to grab her stuff. “Hi, Katharine? I’ve got a _huge_ favor to ask. Can you have a crisis tonight? Like, a fake one...?”

By the time she stepped back into the elevator, vacuum by her side, Jupiter was all set. _Here’s hoping he’s better by tomorrow night..._


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you sure about this?” Katharine set the brake on her car and turned to Jupiter. “I mean, you don’t know anything about this guy, he could be a thief or a murderer or…”

“Right now he’s just sick,” Jupiter injected firmly, snapping off her seatbelt. “He can’t even sit up.”

“I still think you should call the cops,” Katharine said, but without force.

Jupiter shrugged. “I think he’s like me,” she said, reasoning that it was at least _partly_ true. “Not here, um, legally.” She leaned back to collect her bags from the back of Katharine’s car.

Katharine sighed. “Well, promise me you’ll call them if he gets violent, okay?”

“Sure.” Jupiter swung out of the car. “Thanks for the ride, Kath, I owe you one.”

“No problem,” Katharine said cheerfully, and Jupiter nudged the door shut with her elbow. Her friend waved and drove off, and Jupiter hurried down the alley to the Birchmere’s service entrance.

As far as the Bolotnikov family was concerned, Katharine was having a personal crisis and Jupiter was providing emotional support, which gave Jupiter Saturday night and all of Sunday without someone needing her at home for something--Vassily wouldn’t want to upset a client by demanding that Jupiter come home before she was needed for her regular work. It wasn’t a ploy Jupiter liked using, but she couldn’t think of any other way to get a decent chunk of uninterrupted time.

 _Probably I’ll get up there and he’ll have gone anyway,_ she thought, shifting one bag of supplies to her other hand so she could use her key. _Disappeared with his weirdo guns, and that’ll be that._ She wasn’t sure if she was hoping, or worrying.

But when she let herself into the Whitney apartment he was still there, curled into a ball on the floor, the pillow pushed aside and the sheet wrapped tightly around him. His shirt lay discarded a few feet away, but all Jupiter could see of him was a tuft of hair and those heavy boots.

“Wow.” She set down her bags with a thump. “I’m really kind of surprised to see you.”

The bedroom smelled of him, musky and hot, though the odor wasn’t unpleasant--just a little strange. Jupiter crouched to peel back the sheet enough to find his forehead, and frowned when she touched it and he didn’t move. “Your fever’s back up. Hold on.”

She took one bag back to the kitchen to unpack it--some snacks for her, but also ginger ale, crackers, and a big tub of homemade chicken soup. “My aunt Nino’s a first-class space cadet, but she makes incredible soup,” Jupiter said loudly, more to break the silence than because she thought the mystery man was awake enough to listen. “Trust me, whatever germs you’ve got are going to give up and die when you taste this.”

She poured it into a pot and set it to warm on the stove, hoping the Whitneys never found out what she was doing in their space, and filled a pitcher with water before getting out a glass and taking them back to the bedroom.

The other bag held a number of essentials, including more ibuprofen. Jupiter shook out two more tablets and set them on the carpet next to the glass and pitcher, then started unwinding the sheet until she’d uncovered the man’s head.

His forehead was creased and his face looked tight, as if he were having bad dreams. Jupiter couldn’t help stroking his cheek with the backs of her fingers, and was a little startled when the crease deepened and he turned toward her hand, as if seeking the touch.

“Hey, can you wake up for me?” she asked, tapping his nose very lightly.

Fever-glazed eyes cracked open; they were too swollen for her to make out the color, but he seemed to see her, at least. Jupiter smiled encouragingly. “Hey there. What’s your name?”

He didn’t say anything, though Jupiter couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t understand her, or because he didn’t want to tell. She shrugged. “No problem. Can you sit up any? I’ve got some medicine and some more water for you.” She held up the pills and the glass, and his gaze tracked from the tablets to fasten on the glass with an intensity she could almost feel.

“Yeah, I bet you’re thirsty. Come on, sit up so you won’t choke.” Jupiter gestured, trying not to spill the water, and after a moment he seemed to get the idea and struggled to sit up. Jupiter set the glass down hastily and put an arm behind his shoulders again, and managed to get him more-or-less upright, the sheet falling away.

The man began shivering at once. He really was thin, Jupiter thought, _unhealthy_ thin, though still strongly muscled. But he was reaching both shaking hands for the glass, and she scooped it up. Before she could hand it to him, his fingers were wrapping around hers to bring it to his mouth.

They were shockingly hot against her skin, the dry heat of fever, and she could feel the strength of them even through their trembling, though his grip was nowhere near as strong as the first time. He drank fast, gulping; some water escaped to run down his chin, but he didn’t slow, forcing her hand upward to empty the last of it into his mouth. His lips were cracked, Jupiter noticed.

The man gasped as he finished the water, and she saw a flash of his inhuman teeth, but his gaze fixed on the pitcher. Jupiter pulled her hand free of his. “You can have some more, but you have to swallow these too.”

Since her other arm was still helping him sit up, it was a bit tricky to switch things around, but when she showed him the pills again he seemed to understand and didn’t pull back when she held them to his mouth. She hurried to pour more water, but he was already dry-swallowing them, and Jupiter winced at the thought and lifted the glass to his lips again.

He drank just as desperately, eyes sliding shut as if keeping them open was too much effort. Jupiter’s arm was beginning to quiver, so when he was done she lowered him back down to the floor. “Are you _sure_ you don’t want to sleep in the bed?”

He mumbled something incomprehensible and curled up tightly, shivering harder. Jupiter snagged the sheet, but as she went to drag it over him, his bare back caught her gaze. He had freckles there too, but also a whole bunch of scars--two big round ones near his shoulderblades, and a scattering of others that looked like cuts or burns. _Wow. I wonder how you got **those**._ The big ones looked almost as if they had _metal_ embedded in them, but that was ridiculous and she wasn’t going to sit there and gawk at him while he was vulnerable.

She pulled the sheet up and tucked it in around his shoulders; the huge abstract tattoo on his bicep looked almost ordinary compared to everything else. His hair immediately fell across his face, and she pulled it carefully back, puzzled by the texture. It was clean, she could tell by the feel, but badly matted, clumping in random tangles that couldn’t be comfortable, and a direct contrast to the tidiness of the rest of him--even his nails were scrupulously clean.

“How about I take your boots off?” Jupiter didn’t really expect a response. “That’s gotta be uncomfortable.”

He didn’t move when she pulled cautiously on his oversized boot, but neither did the boot. Jupiter frowned and looked more closely, but nowhere among the boot’s decorations--and there were a lot of them--could she find any fasteners.

“They don’t _look_ that tight,” she said, yanking a little. “Did you use _Superglue_?”

Whatever he _had_ used, it was effective, and she had to give up. Jupiter shook her head and switched ends, stuffing the pillow back under his head, and went to unpack the rest of her stuff. _If I’m going to stay here all night, I might as well be comfortable._

Two years of cleaning the Whitney apartment had made her familiar with their possessions, and while she wasn’t entirely sanguine making free with their things, Jupiter figured that she wasn’t going to damage anything or use anything valuable. So she collected a few huge throw pillows from the second bedroom, and presto, she had a comfortable nest on the master bedroom floor next to her patient. She added the pitcher of water and glasses for both of them, a bag of chips for her and the crackers in case the mystery man woke up enough, kicked off her shoes, and put her purse within reach. _All set_.

Then she sat down next to the guy and felt his forehead again. “Still too hot,” she told him, and one eye slitted open to peer at her blearily. “Bet you could use some more water.”

It took some doing, but she managed to get him to roll over and into her lap, half-leaning against her. He was heavier than he looked and as hot as his hands had been, but the important thing was that he was upright enough to drink without choking. It was awkward working around the big head propped against her ribs, but Jupiter got another few glasses of water into him.

And before she could ease him back to the floor, he turned over to press his face into her stomach, threw his arm around her waist, and went limp.

“Um.” Jupiter stared down at him in astonishment. “That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

She shoved tentatively at his shoulder, but his arm tightened and he made a faint high-pitched noise that sounded somehow _desperate_. He was heavy, but not too much, and she found she didn’t have the heart to push him off.

“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Jupiter muttered, and leaned over to drag a pillow between herself and the wall, then grabbed her phone.

It took her three different sites and almost forty-five minutes to realize she was stroking the tangled mess that was the mystery man’s hair. Her fingers kept catching against the snarls, though he didn’t react to the tiny pulls, and finally Jupiter fished a comb out of her purse, switched to iTunes, and started working out the knots.

 _This is crazy,_ she told herself. _Taking care of a sick guy is one thing, but letting him sleep in your lap while you comb out his hair is--_

Well, actually, it reminded her vaguely of the fairy tales her aunt had read her when she was little. Jupiter seemed to remember some illustration of a captive princess combing an ogre’s hair or something. _But he’s not an ogre, and I’m definitely no princess._

Still, the process was soothing, and her phone had a lot of charge. Jupiter hummed along and let her thoughts drift for a while, and eventually found that she’d run out of tangles.

She looked down at the golden-brown mass that streamed over the man’s shoulders. “You look like the cover dude on one of Mom’s old romance novels,” she informed him, “except you’re too skinny.”

His face was still hidden against her stomach; Jupiter could feel a damp patch in her shirt where he was breathing. _Trouble is, it’s just going to get tangled up again._ She regarded him thoughtfully, then shrugged. _Why not? If he doesn’t like it, he can take it out._

With swift fingers, she twined his hair into a simple braid and fastened it with an elastic from her bag. “There. That’ll keep it out of the way for now.”

It also left his face exposed, or at least one side of it. He had a thick brow the same color as his hair, and a line of beard along his jaw, hardly more than fuzz, but the rest of his facial hair was hidden in her shirt. There was a scar on one cheekbone, and Jupiter wondered what had made it.

Then she blinked, and looked closer. There was some kind of scar or something on his neck too--no, not a scar, or another tattoo even. “That’s a _brand_. Wow, you are _hardcore_ into body mod.”

When she touched his forehead, his fever had dropped, so she shook his shoulder again. “Hey, dude. My leg’s falling asleep. How about some soup?”

He actually _whined_ , and clutched her tighter, and Jupiter had to laugh. “I’m not your plushie. Come on, wake up.”

The mystery man snuffled, and finally rolled over enough to look up at her, eyes still swollen. Jupiter smiled at him. “Nice of you to join the living.”

* * *

_LYCANTANT: VARIANT 5 SPLICE. HUMAN BASE AUGMENTED WITH LYCANT DNA. BRED EXCLUSIVELY AS SOLDIERS, GUARDS, HUNTERS. BASE MODEL IS REGULATED BUT SPLICERS MAY ADD VARIATIONS._

_LYCANT: MAMMALIAN PACK PREDATOR ORIGINATING ON OPTICA BETA. INTELLIGENCE LEVEL 6. HIGHLY AGGRESSIVE, HIGHLY DANGEROUS._


	5. Chapter 5

Caine burned.

There had been a planet, once, where the Legion had fought a bloody battle for some goal he couldn’t remember; sand as far as any eye could see and hotter than standing in a ship’s exhaust. Nights were icy, but the days were the worst, fighting through the searing blast of sun, the scorching metallic air. No relief from the relentless heat.

This lacked the sand and the sun, but it was just as hot. He didn’t know where he was anymore, everything smelled strange and he was too weak now to even crawl to the sink for water. Hallucinations raced past, making him shake with shocky chills and remember things he would have given his eyes to forget; thirst consumed him, and he knew it was the desert, reaching out to swallow him and crumble him to dust--

Water sluiced over his tongue. He drank greedily, though it hardly touched the dry tissues of his mouth before it was gone. A vague shape was bending over him, speaking in quick light tones, but he couldn’t understand a word of it through the heat.

Gentle hands touched him, and he knew the dreams had returned, because _gentle_ belonged to his earliest days when he had been still too small to stand. Scent came with them, something warm and rich and comforting; he wanted to burrow into it, wrap it around himself, but he couldn’t even open his eyes.

He heard weapons-fire, and struggled to get to his feet--there was a battle, he had to fight, protect the hands, must _move_ \--

Darkness swamped him, and he was lost in it.

* * *

 

The hands and the scent lured him out again. More water--never enough, but it beat back the heat a little. The hands took on shape, dark hair and a slight form; the scent came from her…

She was kind. He could barely see her, his eyes wouldn’t stay open long enough, but she gave him medicine and water, and it had been so long since anyone had been _kind_.

Caine drifted in and out, sometimes hot and sometimes chilled, but she was still there, gentle hands and light voice and a scent that promised rest and safety and comfort. He still wasn’t sure she was real, but when he reached out she was solid under his hands, and he held tight and let the darkness take him again.

* * *

 

This time, when he woke, his head was clearer. Fever still burned beneath his skin, but he could think again, even if each thought seemed to march at half-speed. A hand shook his shoulder, and the woman was talking about _food._

His face was pressed against warmth and softness, buried in that wonderful scent. It took an effort to let go and turn over, but when he did the woman came into a sort of blurry focus, the disparate parts made whole. Young, unafraid, and smiling. “Nice of you to join the living.”

No words came to him. Caine stared up at her, lost in simple wonder at the kindness in her smile. She raised both brows. “You got a name, stranger?”

His throat was too dry to speak. Caine swallowed, and blinked, and she patted his arm. “Don’t worry about it for now. Let me up and I’ll get you some soup, how about that?”

 _Soup_ sounded like a miracle, but it was the pitcher near her knee that fixed his attention. Caine struggled to sit up, and the woman helped him hastily, keeping one hand on his back until she was sure he had his balance. He gestured at the pitcher, trying to ask.

“Ooh, yeah, here.” The woman picked up a glass and the pitcher, but before she could pour Caine leaned over far enough to take the latter. Raising it to his mouth made his hands shake, and the contents had the same harsh smell of the water from the sink, but he didn’t care. It poured into his mouth like a blessing, and he drank and drank, ignoring the woman’s yelp.

“You’ll be sick! Crap.”

Caine knew he wouldn’t be; the pitcher was only half-full to begin with. He drained it, then let its weight carry his hands down, gasping a little. The woman was giving him a look that mingled concern and amusement. “All right, who am I to argue? Give it back though.” She tugged it from his hands. “I’ll get some more.”

The woman pushed to her feet and scooped up a little device from the floor, stuffing it in her pocket. “Be right back.”

Caine watched her walk down the little hallway and out of sight; she kept glancing back at him, curious and a little wary, but still smiling. He could remember, now, where he was, but he had no idea how long he’d been sick. _I don’t think it’s going to kill me, though._

And now that his thirst was partially slaked, his bladder was clamoring for attention. Caine wasn’t sure he could stand, but the ‘fresher room wasn’t far, so he gathered his shaky legs under himself and used the bed as a prop. Somewhat to his surprise, he didn’t fall.

He had to brace himself against the sink when he was finished so he could clean his hands and bathe his face. Looking in the mirror was a further surprise, and he almost lost his balance raising a hand to touch the braid. _I didn’t see a groomer tool in here._

Well, it didn’t matter. It was a relief to have the stuff out of his eyes.

When he staggered back out of the ‘fresher room, the woman was just coming back in, carrying the pitcher and a mug; the odor coming from the latter made Caine’s mouth water and his stomach start complaining bitterly. He tried to ignore it, and study her instead.

She was young, and it had to be true youth since this planet didn’t have ReCell. Skin almost as pale as his, dark hair pulled back in a tail, big eyes fixed on him with some worry; she set down the mug and pitcher hastily and stepped forward. “Hey, careful! I’m not sure you should be standing up yet.”

Caine almost flinched away when she put an arm around his waist, but his muscles were trembling with fatigue and his head was starting to spin. He couldn’t muster a protest when the woman steered him to the bed; she was small, but strong.

“You’ll be more comfortable up here,” she said, shoving him gently back against the headboard, and Caine found himself pulling his legs up onto the mattress despite its softness.

The woman looked down at his feet. “Hey, let’s lose the boots, okay? You don’t need to wear them in bed. At least right now.” She flushed, color heating her skin, and laughed a little. “Can we delete that? Boots. Off.”

Caine wasn’t at all sure what she meant by most of that, but it _was_ clear that she wanted him to remove his footwear. Part of him rebelled at the idea--he was already unarmed--but there didn’t seem to be any threat to flee at the moment and it seemed to be a good idea to please the person taking care of him. _And you’re too weak to run right now as it is._

So he disengaged the boots and reached down to pull them off. The woman took them as soon as they cleared his toes, her expression oddly suspicious, but since she immediately put them down on the carpet next to the bed Caine didn’t protest. She spread a sheet over him and tucked it in with brisk efficiency, then handed him the mug. It was warm against his palms, and the contents wisped with steam that smelled of meat and herbs. He wanted to swallow it all at once, but he made himself take only a sip.

The taste exploded across his tongue, rich and savory and almost as satisfying as the woman’s scent, and Caine barely restrained a moan. His pleasure must have shown in his face, because the woman chuckled and patted the sheet where it covered his knee. “Told you,” she said enigmatically, and went to pick up his shirt where it lay on the floor.

The soup had small chunks of vegetables in it, though nothing he recognized, and flat strips of something starchy, and they all tasted _wonderful_. Caine tried to drink it slowly, savoring each mouthful and watching the woman as she folded his shirt and set it on the far end of the bed.

He had no idea what the standards for beauty were on this world, but to his eyes she was pretty; her features were expressive, and the simple checked shirt and trousers she wore suited her rather slender form. It was _her_ scent that had lingered in the space when he’d first entered it, he recognized the trace; but at the same time he suspected that it wasn’t her home. Nothing else there smelled of her.

She sat down on the end of the bed and watched him back, looking pleased as he finished the soup. “There’s crackers, too, for later,” she remarked. “Though it doesn’t look like you have stomach flu, lucky for you.”

Caine’s translator didn’t know what a _cracker_ was, exactly, but the rest of it made sense, and he had to admit he was grateful that his illness didn’t include gastrointestinal disturbance. But his small store of energy was running out rapidly, and he struggled to keep his eyes open.

The woman stood up and came to take the mug before he dropped it. “You need another nap,” she said easily. “Want some more water first?”

Caine cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, his voice cracking. “Please.”

Her face lit. “Hey, you _do_ talk! Excellent.” She poured a glassful and passed it to him. “Here you go.”

She put the pitcher on the little bureau next to the bed, well within his reach, and Caine finished the glass and poured himself another. It was a little disconcerting to have her stand there and watch him drink it, but she was smiling, and she smelled--pleased. Contented. The sort of scent that would compel someone to _keep_ her content, just to be able to breathe it all the time--

Caine blinked a few times, trying to clear his head, and the woman chuckled. “Go to sleep,” she told him, taking the glass out of his hand and setting it next to the pitcher. “I’ll be here all night.”

Obediently he slid down until he was lying flat, and she tugged the sheet up to cover him. Her earlier question floated back into his brain, and what did it matter? She was a tercie who knew nothing about the universe surrounding her bright little planet, she couldn’t betray him to anyone. “Caine Wise,” he mumbled.

“What? Oh--that’s your name?” She beamed at him. “Nice to meet you, Caine.”

He was fading quickly, but Caine managed to look the query at her, and she chuckled. “Jupiter Jones,” she said, and smoothed the sheet over his shoulder, lips quirking. “I’m here to help you.”

He took a long breath of her scent, and let it follow him into sleep.

* * *

 

_TERTIARY WORLD: PLANET INHABITED BY HUMAN SPECIES THAT HAS NOT PENETRATED BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF THE PLANET’S SOLAR SYSTEM. USUALLY BUT NOT ALWAYS APPLIED TO PLANETS FARMED FOR HARVEST._

_HARVEST: THE COLLECTION AND REMOVAL OF A FARMED POPULATION PRIOR TO PROCESSING._

* * *

 

Jupiter drowsed for a while herself while the mystery man--Caine Wise--slept, and when she stretched and yawned her way out of her nest and felt his forehead again, it was damp and much less hot than it had been, though she wouldn’t call it _cool_ , exactly. It was pretty clear his fever had broken, though.

He didn’t move at her touch, but when she peered down at him Jupiter could see a thread of dried blood trailing down from his cracked lower lip. Wincing, she fished out her little jar of lip balm from her purse and dipped in a finger, then reached out to smooth the slick stuff over his damaged skin.

She meant to do it briskly, clinically, but found her hand moving slowly. His mouth was softer than she expected, and touching it sent an odd little thrill up her spine.

Shaking her head, Jupiter finished and wiped her hand on a tissue, then absently dipped in a different finger to coat her own lips. She was tempted to go back to sleep, but the floor wasn’t _that_ comfortable, and curiosity was awake again too. _I never did find an ID for him._

Jupiter tiptoed quietly around the bed, reflecting that she should eat something soon as well, and this time lay down on her belly to get a better look under the bed.

But there was nothing there besides what she’d already seen. Jupiter left the weapons alone but picked up one of the strange gadgets. It looked like a palm-sized disk of thick cobalt glass, caged in dark metal; it seemed almost ornamental, vaguely steampunk, but Jupiter didn’t think it was a just a tchotchke.

There was also a thing that reminded Jupiter of a Palm Pilot, only the size of a paperback book--vintage tech? It looked far too clumsy to be modern. But no matter what she poked, she couldn’t get it to turn on. _Battery’s dead, maybe._

The man on the bed stirred and sighed, and Jupiter replaced the stuff hastily and sat up for a look. Wise was still asleep, though, and when her stomach gurgled Jupiter decided it was time for a midnight snack. The soup was still simmering gently in the kitchen, so she ladled up a bowl of it and stood at the counter to eat it, running aimless image searches on her phone in hopes of finding something that looked like the guy’s things, and having no success whatsoever.

So when a throat cleared behind her Jupiter nearly dropped her phone in her soup. _“Crap!”_

She spun around to find Caine standing a couple of yards away, looking wobbly, a bit lost, and surprisingly _hot_ , particularly since he hadn’t put his shirt back on. “Sheesh, _warn_ a girl next time!”

Caine stared at her, wide-eyed, then swallowed--she could see his throat working--before he spoke. “...Sorry?”

Hot and _cute._ Jupiter gave herself a mental smack, _down girl_. “Um. Yeah, me too. Uh, are you sure you should be out of bed?”

Caine nodded hesitantly. He was way too thin, unhealthily so, she could see it clearly now that he was standing up, but his eyes were focused. “The illness is finished.”

Jupiter arched a brow at the weird phrasing. “Sure. Okay, but are you hungry? Because, dude, I try not to make personal remarks but you really look like you need to eat more.”

 _Aaaaand I just **did**._ Jupiter could feel the blush crawling up her face, but Caine didn’t seem to notice. He nodded, and his gaze fixed on the soup pot. “Yes?”

For such a big guy, especially one with a naked chest, he seemed weirdly _shy_. But since she was playing hostess, Jupiter found another bowl and filled it with soup, handing it to him and then going to look for a spoon. But by the time she turned around with the utensil in hand, Caine was halfway through the bowl, drinking straight from the rim.

 _Ha. Nino’s soup gets them every time._ Jupiter shrugged, dropped the spoon back in the drawer, and took a moment’s shameless pleasure in watching the muscles in Caine’s torso flex as he sipped and swallowed.

He wasn’t gobbling it, exactly, and he didn’t spill a drop, but the bowl emptied pretty quickly. Jupiter thought about arguing, but-- _He’s a grown-up. If he wants to eat until he pukes, well, as long as he does it in the toilet it’s his business._

When he lowered the bowl and his gaze slid back to the pot, she filled it again without a word, and then busied herself setting out crackers and a couple of glasses of water. _Too bad I don’t have any orange juice._

Caine finished the second serving and, when she offered a plateful, methodically polished off half a sleeve of saltines, though Jupiter somehow got the feeling he didn’t think much of their flavor. _Duh--who does?_

She tried not to stare. For whatever reason, he’d put his boots back on and added pair of fingerless gloves she hadn’t spotted before. They made him look vaguely punklike, and not one bit less hot.

When he was finished, he gathered the plate and both bowls _and_ her spoon, then looked around a little helplessly. The vision of a male trying to clean up was so novel that Jupiter took a moment to answer. “Just put them in the sink--there’s not enough to bother running the dishwasher.”

Caine set the dishes carefully in the sink, then stepped back, folding his arms and leaning back against the counter. “You don’t live here,” he said abruptly, his voice low and still a little hoarse.

Jupiter regarded him. “I’m not going to ask how you know that,” she said. “What I _am_ gonna ask is how the _heck_ you got in here. Are you a cat burglar or something?”

Caine frowned, a crease appearing between his brows, and then he reached up to rub at the side of his neck. “No.” When Jupiter raised her brows impatiently, he continued. “I’m--I just needed a place to stay.”

“So you picked an apartment on the _nineteenth floor_ , whose owners just _happen_ to be out of town until Christmas?”

His frown went from faintly insulted to puzzled. “Yes. An occupied one would have been pointless.”

Well, _true,_ but. “How did you _know?_ ‘Cause I know you don’t work here.”

“I listened.” The statement was so matter-of-fact that Jupiter automatically distrusted it. She threw up her hands.

“Y’know, this is stupid. I should just call Security and have them haul you out of here.”

Instead of panicking or trying to threaten her, Caine merely smiled, a small and amused expression. “I’d be gone before they got here.”

Jupiter was tempted to call him on it, but she didn’t _want_ to. Wise’s fever might have broken, but he still looked semi-transparent, and underneath that amusement was something quietly unhappy.

And it hit her right in the gut. Jupiter had always been the kind of kid who picked up fallen nestlings and fed stray cats, even if Aleksa had never let her keep any of them. Whoever-- _whatever_ \--Caine Wise was, he was in trouble, and that meant she wanted to help.

“Look.” She bit her lip, then just went with it. “I know you’re, um, different. I won’t call Security or the police or anything, but can you tell me what’s going on?”

Caine’s gaze dropped to the floor. He was silent a long moment, but Jupiter kept her stare on him. “I need to know,” she added. “Because this _isn’t_ your place, and I’m responsible for it.”

Caine’s lips tightened, and then he straightened. The fingers of his right hand, held down at his side, flickered, and with a _vwoop_ and a buzzing hum, his bootsoles lit up.

And lifted him into the air.

Jupiter gaped. Wise was hovering about six inches off the floor, steady and at ease, and she felt like her brain was exploding, because what she’d suspected was actually _true_ , against every bit of logic and good sense.

Part of her was still denying it, babbling about dreams and hallucinations and pranks. Another part was shrieking in delight, and that was the part that finally managed to get words out her mouth. “You’re an _alien._ ”

Caine cocked his head. “Genomgeneered human,” he replied. “They cut my genes with a pack predator’s. I’m a lycantant, bred for the military, but...that didn’t work out for me.”

A million questions were bubbling up in Jupiter’s head--genom _what_ , lycantant, military, _what_ military, bred _how_ , why, Katharine would absolutely _freak_ \-- Jupiter grabbed at one in passing. “What happened?”

Caine’s gaze dropped again, and he seemed to shrink, shoulders pulling in as if they hurt. “I...I don’t…”

 _Crap._ “You don’t have to tell me,” Jupiter said hastily. “It’s none of my business, really.” She reached out instinctively to touch his arm, then stopped halfway. “I just...need to know what to do with you, I guess.”

The simplest thing would be to open the door and shoo him out, she supposed. But that baby-bird feeling was still there, and Jupiter couldn’t shake the thought that while Caine might be recovering from his flu, he still needed looking after.

And…she didn’t want him to go. Whatever else he was, he was proof of-- _more_. More than the dull, monotonous grind of daily life. Almost _magic_.

_Daddy--Daddy would have freaked out…_

Caine shook his head quickly, glancing up through his lashes in a dangerously attractive way. “I’m better now. You don’t need to do anything.” His fingers wiggled again, light glowing from his glove, and the boots lowered him back to the floor. The hum ceased.

Jupiter ignored his words. “If you’re--okay, not an alien maybe, but not from _here_ , then you’re going to need a guide, aren’t you?” Or maybe he already knew what he was doing. “Why _are_ you here? You’re not, like, the spy for an invasion force or something?”

Caine blinked. “No.” He frowned, jaw shifting, then spoke so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. “I’m...I escaped.”

Jupiter opened her mouth to ask _from where_ , and then closed it again. He looked so _miserable_. “Okay,” she said instead, trying to soothe him. “Okay. Well. Space guy. I guess you don’t have, like, a ship or anything? ID? Money?”

Caine shook his head. Jupiter blew out a breath. “Then we’ll have to find you a job.”

He blinked again, and swayed slightly, and on instinct Jupiter darted forward to brace him, ending up with an arm around his waist. “Back to bed,” she told him firmly, trying not to think how warm and muscle-y and...wow, he smelled really great. “Right now.”

He didn’t argue, and she could feel him trembling a little, though he didn’t put much weight on her as they shuffled around and headed back to the bedroom.

Caine was asleep seconds after Jupiter pulled off his boots again; she debated for a moment, and decided to leave his gloves where they were. _Lots less uncomfortable to sleep in, and I don’t want to turn the boots on by accident._ Would they hit the ceiling if he wasn’t weighting them down?

Or go _through_ it?

Then Jupiter curled up with her favorite playlist and a handful of cookies, and tried to think about what she’d just learned.

The Universe was suddenly a lot _bigger,_ somehow.

* * *

 

_GRAV-BOOTS: SKYJACKER-ISSUE FOOTWEAR. CHANNELS AVAILABLE GRAVITY INTO VARIABLE SLOPES THE WEARER CAN RIDE. USED IN SITUATIONS WHERE SKYJACKER-ISSUE WINGS ARE NOT PRACTICABLE._

_SKYJACKER-ISSUE WINGS: SEE ENTRY ON LEGION, SECTION: SKYJACKERS_


	6. Chapter 6

When Caine woke again, he knew he hadn’t slept long. The fatigue had come on him suddenly, but it had lacked the mental fog of before, and he remembered the girl-- _Jupiter_ \--helping him back to bed and once more drawing the cover over him. He even remembered the quick caress of her hand on his head, a sensation so foreign and alluring that it had almost brought him back awake.

He lay still for the moment, training preserving the illusion of sleep while he assessed his environment. Not much had changed; Jupiter was still in the room, though the slowness of her breath and heartbeat indicated that she was sleeping too.

Hunger rose grumbling in Caine’s gut, but he ignored it for the moment. His metabolism was gearing back up to abundance again, and would temporarily demand even larger amounts of nutrients to make up for years of lack and his recent illness, but he could put it off a bit longer. For now, he could consider his next move.

Except he still didn’t know what it should _be._

He’d formed a vague plan when forced to leave the pinnace--disappear into the population, assimilate, fit in. But that was going to be harder than he’d thought, his appearance was too far from normal in this area. And his den had been discovered; he no longer had a place to hide, to dwell in safety.

Caine knew that was a good thing, in this case; the illness probably wouldn’t have killed him, but he might still be in the grip of it if Jupiter hadn’t found him, and certainly he would be recovering much more slowly. But his first venture at actual _living_ had failed.

He opened his eyes slowly, breathing in the scent of the sleeping woman. It was almost as good a smell as her contentment, soothing and somnolent, and Caine savored it. Pleasant odors had been in short supply in the Deadland, an additional punishment for a lycantant, and the contrast alone was worth the noticing.

Jupiter wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Open-handed, open- _hearted,_ quick to smile without derision; so very, very kind, and for no reason that Caine could see. All his thoughts kept circling back to her, and not just because of her scent. She hadn’t summoned the authorities; instead, she’d helped him, _cared_ for him, and apparently with no expectation of payment.

It was overwhelming. Caine had given up hoping for such generosity by the time he’d learned to speak; in the Legion he’d found a kind of comradeship and the solidity of a team, but they’d looked out for each other because a soldier alone was weak. Underneath it all he’d still been the lone runt lycantant, of value due to his skills but still outcast.

Until Stinger--

Caine flinched away from _that_ memory. Gone, gone like everything else--

He muffled a sound in the nearest pillow and sat up. The room was softly lit, more than enough to see Jupiter sprawled on more pillows on the floor, her wired earpieces gone loose and music trickling faintly from their terminals.

Not only had she taken care of him, she’d offered to help him further, to be a guide, to help him fit in. She’d acted as if--as if he were _worth_ something.

_Maybe...maybe I can be, here._

The little tercie planet knew nothing about Splices, after all; nothing about how imperfect Caine was, how shamed. And with guidance--

Jupiter had helped him, with no reason. And she’d offered to help him further.

A lycantant without a pack was rootless, adrift, lost. He’d had enough in the Legion to keep him going, and enough stubbornness to survive the Deadland, but he wasn’t _built_ to be solo.

A pure human might delight in such perfect freedom. Caine was smart enough to admit it scared him.

But here was Jupiter. Who smiled at him, who smelled so good, who said _we_ like it was natural. Who knew this planet, or at least this part of it.

He licked his lips, and started, because somehow her _taste_ was on them, faint but there, richer than her scent. It didn’t make any sense, because she hadn’t touched his mouth, but it felt like a sign. Or a seal.

Caine owed her. He needed her. He _liked_ her. And instinct was urging him to strengthen the bond. He was bred to serve; but more, he was bred to be one of many, not one alone.

The decision wasn’t conscious; it came from a far deeper level. He simply _knew_ , and the knowledge was good.

Caine slid out of the bed, moving slowly; he was still weak. Jupiter didn’t stir, and he took note of how she was curled in on herself, as if she were chilled.

It was only natural to pick her up, then, and tuck her into the bed in his place. But he was just smoothing the cover over her when she muttered something about hate--Caine noticed it was not in the same language she’d been speaking before--and woke.

Caine took a hasty step backwards, tucking his hands behind himself; lycantants were built to be intimidating, and even as a runt he was bigger than she. Jupiter blinked up at him, eyes unfocused, and then lifted the cover and stared at it. “Did I sleepwalk, or did you put me here?” she asked.

“I put you there,” Caine replied. “You…looked cold.”

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth opened and closed. “Okay,” she said after a moment, sounding puzzled. As she looked him over, her gaze sharpened, and Caine straightened fractionally as if at inspection.

“You said you were a soldier, right?” Jupiter swung her legs over to sit on the edge of the mattress. At Caine’s nod she bit her lip, a thinking gesture. “So you’re good at, like, hand to hand combat, stuff like that?”

“I was the best in my squadron,” Caine said. The touch of pride lasted only as long as it took to remember his squadmates turning their backs on him--but it was the truth.

“Mmm. Okay.” Jupiter stretched, raising her arms over her head, and then reached back to undo her tail of hair. “Here’s an idea. I don’t know what the heck you’ve got out there in space, but down here we’ve got places--clubs, bars--that use big hunky guys as security, sort of.”

“Bouncers?” Caine asked, and her face cleared.

“Yeah! You’ve done that?” She smoothed her hair back and refastened it.

“No. But I’ve been thrown out of bars a few times.” Mostly because of his commander, but when he’d been young and new to the Legion he’d tried to defend his own honor a few times. It had rarely gone well.

Jupiter grinned. “Yeah, me too. That’s what I’m thinking, though. That kind of work--well, a lot of places won’t ask for ID when they’re hiring, and it’s a better paycheck than washing dishes.” She muffled a yawn. “And trust me, between my cousin and Katharine, I have _contacts_.”

“Whatever you think best,” Caine said obediently. It was an incredible relief, to have someone offering _direction_.

Jupiter squinted at him, head tilting. “Whatever _I_ think best? This is _your_ life, space dude. Don’t you at least have a, I don’t know, an _opinion?_ ”

Caine shook his head. “You’re the expert,” he said. “You know this world. I don’t.”

Jupiter bit her lip again, still staring at him, then waved both hands. “Okay, whatever, you can always change your mind later. I’ll ask around.” She sighed. “In the meantime, I’m hungry again, what about you?”

“Yeah,” Caine said, relieved at the mention of food. “Is there more soup?”

Jupiter grinned.

* * *

_LYCANTANT: SUBSECTION 122-B: LYCANTANTS ARE SORTED INTO PACKS BEFORE SALE. LYCANTANTS DEPRIVED OF PACKMATES HAVE A VERY LOW SURVIVAL RATE AND USUALLY FAIL TO THRIVE. SURVIVORS POSSESS A STRONG BONDING DRIVE AND WILL OFTEN BOND WITH NON-LYCANTANTS IF A PACK SUBSTITUTE IS NOT IN PLACE._

_SUCH BONDING IS NOT IDEAL AND CAN BE DISRUPTIVE TO THE LYCANTANT’S DUTIES AND CONTRACT. IT IS USUALLY CONSIDERED ECONOMIC TO DESTROY THE BONDED LYCANTANT WHEN THIS OCCURS._

* * *

 

In the end, Jupiter decided it was simplest to let Caine Wise stay in the Whitney apartment for a day or so longer. They weren’t due home for months, and they always e-mailed ahead of time so the apartment could be freshened up for them, so she figured it was reasonably safe as long as Caine didn’t make much noise.

It was more than a little weird--well, okay, the _whole thing_ was _very_ weird, but besides the entire space-alien-with-pointed-ears business--to have someone so obviously powerful and _male_ so... _meek_. In Jupiter’s experience, guys with muscles and testosterone to spare didn’t wait obediently for a girl half their size to tell them what to do. And she didn’t think it was just because he was recovering from the flu.

He listened patiently to all the rambling information Jupiter gave him as they whiled Sunday away in the quiet rooms, though there was so much he would need to know that she scarcely knew where to start. She had to talk, anyway, because he wouldn’t. Every time Jupiter asked him a question about what life was like in space, he got an absolutely haunted look and went silent, and it actually hurt to watch, so she stopped.

It didn’t make her any less curious, though.

“Just tell me this,” she said at last, after they’d both had another nap--Jupiter had taken the guest room, this time. “Are there others like you on Earth anywhere?”

Caine shrugged uncomfortably. “Like me? No,” he said. “But from other worlds? More than likely. A few.” He looked down at the dining table and took another potato chip, lifting it delicately from the bowl between them. “None of them would be here, um, officially.”

 _Fugitives,_ Jupiter thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. From _what_ , was the question, but it might not necessarily be justice.

“Are you going to find them?” she asked, and he shook his head, looking grim. “Why not?”

Caine hesitated. “It would be dangerous,” he said at last. “For them and for me.”

“Because someone’s going to come looking for you?” Jupiter frowned.

“No,” Caine said quickly. “No one will--I don’t think anyone will find me.”

That wasn’t very reassuring, and her expression must have said so, because Caine leaned forward, one hand twitching as if he wanted to reach for her. “You won’t be in danger,” he said, voice low and intense. “I swear it.”

“Whoa, chill,” Jupiter said, laughing a little. “I believe you.” She wasn’t sure she actually _did_ , at least completely, but it was hard not to when he was staring at her so solemnly. The chirp of her phone broke the moment, and Jupiter switched topics as she glanced at the screen. “So, okay, let me tell you about social media…”

They ran out of soup about mid-afternoon; Caine was apparently making up for whatever deprivation had left him so ribby and hollow-cheeked. “I’ll run out and get us some more snacks,” Jupiter told him, folding up one of the bags she’d brought and stuffing it in her pocket. “You wait here.”

Caine gave her a look that reminded her of a puppy told _no_. “I want to come with you.”

Jupiter looked him over pointedly. “It’s too cold out for just a shirt, especially since you’re still sick, and while you rock the ears they do kind of stick out.”

Caine stood without a word and disappeared into the master bedroom, reemerging with a jacket that somehow Jupiter had missed earlier. He’d also undone his hair so that it covered his ears.

He still looked--exotic. The jacket was a subtly glittery black, and while his hair also partially obscured the brand on his neck, it hung halfway down his back. Jupiter sighed.

“You look like you escaped from an ‘80s metal band,” she told him. “Okay, but let’s hope it’s not windy out.”

They had to walk almost a mile to reach the nearest convenience store. Despite the heavy boots Caine had a long stride; he moved with easy, athletic grace, and Jupiter had to stretch her own steps a little to keep up. He didn’t walk like a tourist, either, gawking at his surroundings.

“How long has it been since you got here?” Jupiter asked as they waited at a crosswalk.

Caine glanced sharply at the signals. “Two of this planet’s days, maybe three...I lost time while I was sick.”

“Huh.” If it had been _her_ , Jupiter admitted to herself, she would have been gaping at everything. _Maybe he’s been on lots of planets._ Was it even possible to get used to seeing multiple worlds?

A cop car rolled through the intersection just before the light changed, and at the sight of it Jupiter stiffened slightly. It was an automatic reaction; she knew the officer probably hadn’t even seen her, but the threat was always in the back of her mind. _Get caught, get deported_.

Next to her, Caine went very still. “What’s the matter?” he asked, voice dropping low and hard.

Jupiter looked up at him, grabbing his sleeve to tug him across the street since the light wasn’t going to last long. “Nothing. Just a cop, that’s all.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at the car, which hadn’t slowed. “Are the police a problem here?”

Jupiter sighed. “No, it’s--complicated.” They stepped up on the far curb. “Look, most of the time the police are okay.” That was a _vast_ oversimplification, but it would have to do for now. “But for people like you and me, they can be a problem.”

Caine looked down at her, brows lifting, and she shrugged. “Neither of us is here legally. Me, they’d deport. You--I don’t know _what_ they’d do with you.”

Her steps slowed as she recalled her earlier qualms. “In fact...don’t get involved with the police. At all.”

Jupiter wondered how she could possibly explain _because you might get vivisected_ , but Caine didn’t ask, merely nodded and kept walking. His expression was forbidding, though, and Jupiter was startled when one of his hands drifted to the small of her back in a gesture that seemed oddly protective.

She twitched away from it, opening her mouth, but before she could say anything Caine withdrew his hand hastily, looking almost embarrassed. “Hey,” Jupiter said quickly, searching for something to say, “Um, how did you know I didn’t like the cop?”

Caine glanced away. “I could smell your alarm,” he said.

“ _Smell_ it?” Jupiter echoed, and he nodded.

“I’m a Splice,” he said. “The lycant genes I’m spliced with--they give me certain abilities. An enhanced sense of smell is one of them.”

Jupiter blinked. “...Handy.” And wow, if _that_ didn’t raise a whole bunch more questions. _He can smell **emotions**?_

“It can be.” Caine slowed as they reached the next intersection. “What does the flashing signal mean?”

“If you’re about to cross, don’t. If you’re crossing, hurry the fuck up.” Jupiter grinned and poked the crosswalk button. “Drivers are supposed to yield to people in the crosswalk, but there’s always somebody not paying attention.”

That led to an overview of traffic laws and the history of the automobile that got them to the convenience store and inside. It wasn’t one of Jupiter’s usual haunts, but she’d been there a few times--often enough to know that it was pricier than she’d like. _Oh well. The next iPhone’ll probably come out before I get enough saved up for the current model anyway._

She had to stifle a laugh as Caine wandered around the store, picking items up and sniffing them dubiously before setting them back down precisely where they had been. Jupiter grabbed a basket and ignored his expression, gathering foods that she knew were reasonably good--or at least tasty--and collecting a few basics like a toothbrush and a comb for good measure.

And a packet of hair elastics.

* * *

 

When they got back to the apartment, Jupiter showed Caine how to prepare some of the foods she’d purchased, apologizing for their poor nutrient content. Caine didn’t care. It had calories, and it tasted _wonderful_ , and he didn’t have to scavenge for it or kill it. Or kill _for_ it.

Jupiter kept giving him more of it, too, though she shook her head over how much he could consume. It made Caine feel strange, but in a good way; not since he’d been a pup, blind and feeble, had anyone _fed_ him.

The strangeness increased as he was finishing the crusty cheese-and-sauce dish Jupiter called _pizza_. He felt warm inside, almost relaxed, and yet his throat was tight. He felt overwhelmed, but not by a bad feeling; like he wanted to express something, but he didn’t know what it was.

 _You’re tired and still recovering,_ he told himself. _It may even be just the strange food._ Though his nose would have told him if any of it were dangerous to him.

When they were finished, Jupiter put the dishes into the cleaning machine and demonstrated how to run it, then glanced at the interface of her pocket device. “It’s getting late,” she said. “Look, I need to make a call, and then we can figure out what we need to do next, okay?”

Caine nodded, and watched as she wandered out of the kitchen to the bigger room beyond. His hearing was sharp enough to make out her conversation; apparently the device was not only a chronometer and music player but a communicator, and she spoke with someone called Katharine, arranging a ride home with the woman. Katharine sounded worried, and Jupiter spent half the conversation reassuring her that Caine was not dangerous.

 _I am,_ he thought. _I am. But never to you. Never._

It wasn’t even an oath; it was simply what _was_.

“Right,” Jupiter said when she came back in. “Katharine’s going to pick me up in about half an hour, so let’s get you settled.” She gestured him back towards the room he’d chosen, and Caine realized that Jupiter didn’t know he had overheard her conversation. It hadn’t occurred to him until then; everyone he’d ever worked with had been aware of his abilities, and would have put on a hushfield if they wanted privacy.

Before he could explain that, Jupiter was talking again. “I’ll change the sheets really quick, and you can have a shower if you want one, crap, I forgot to buy you a razor.” Her brow creased, and Caine sorted quickly through the images provided by his translator.

 _Oh._ “I don’t need one,” he said, touching his chin. “It’s programmed this way.”

Jupiter squinted up at him. “ _Programmed?_ You’re part computer, too?”

“No.” Caine bit back a smile at the assumption. “Programmed into my genes.”

“Huh.” Jupiter reached out and touched a lock of his hair, still hanging over his shoulder onto his chest. “Is this programmed too?”

Caine had seen enough of her city already to tell that males there didn’t usually wear their hair long, and he felt his cheeks heat a little. “No. I just--” The words cut off, and he had to choose new ones. “I didn’t have access to a blade.”

“Oh. Well, we can go to a barber--or I can cut it for you if you’d rather, though I can’t guarantee the results.” Jupiter grinned at him, a little shy. “Or you can just braid it back again, keep it out of your eyes, crap, I’m babbling again.”

This time he had to smile, just a little. “I--is it bad, to have it long on your world?” Her fingers were still stroking, as if his hair felt pleasant to her touch.

“Nah, just distinctive.” Jupiter noticed she was still touching him, and snatched her hand back, blushing. Caine was startled by the desire to catch her hand and press his entire head against it, and he squashed it hastily.

“Then...will you show me how to braid it?” He’d always kept his cut close to his scalp. Some lycantants wore theirs long, but Skyjackers tended to prefer short hair because it wouldn’t get fouled in their wings. _That’s not a problem now,_ Caine thought bitterly.

“Sure,” Jupiter said. “In fact, I can demonstrate on mine.” She held up a finger. “Be right back, I need to grab my bag.”

In the end, they stood hip to hip in the ‘fresher room while Jupiter brushed her hair out and showed him how it was done, clever fingers twisting the strands of her hair into the the pattern and fastening the end with a stretchy loop. Primitive, but effective, and she chattered the entire time about different kinds of braids and kinds of hair, and the sociology of hairstyles on both men and women in her society.

Caine absorbed it all, watching closely to try to pick up the knack of braiding and then practicing on a hank of his own hair, pulling it out so he could watch his fingers move. The motions were simple, but capturing all the strands so that they lay smoothly was more difficult.

“You’ll get it,” Jupiter encouraged him when his third effort ended in ends sticking out all down the cable. “Practice makes perfect, and besides, your hair’s kind of damaged. I’ll try to pick something up for that.”

She bit her lip, then met his gaze in the mirror. “Do you want me to do it for you again? Just so you don’t end up with one big knot in the morning.”

“Please, yes.” Caine tried not to sound too eager. It wasn’t something he could _ask_ for, but to have her touch him again, leave her scent on him--he was so hungry for it that he could hardly hold back.

“Okay, then we should--” Jupiter stopped as Caine simply dropped to his knees, presenting his back to her. “Or we could do it this way, sure.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her reflection shake its head, but her lips were quirked up and she didn’t smell upset at his presumption. Jupiter took up the brush and smoothed it through his hair again, and it felt so good that Caine closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the gentle scratch and tingle, the warmth of her fingers brushing the nape of his neck.

She was swift, twining and tugging lightly. “I’m doing it loose so your scalp won’t get sore,” she said, a bit indistinctly since she was holding the fastener between her lips. “If you’re gonna sleep on it you want it loose.”

Then it was done, a faint weight dangling between his shoulderblades, between the scars of his wings. Caine took a deep breath. _That is the past. You have a future now._

It still hurt, but the ache was bearable.


	7. Chapter 7

Jupiter spent the entire next day thinking about the guy in the Whitney apartment, so much so that she scarcely noticed work, let alone got bored.

Part of her distraction was because he was a _problem_ , a big one. Caine Wise had no ID, no money, no job, and--if he was telling the truth, because the whole thing was a lot harder to believe after a night’s sleep--no idea how to survive in Chicago or anywhere else on Earth. Jupiter herself had limited resources and even more limited time, and it was going to be a real challenge to help him.

The other part, though, kept going back to how much she _liked_ him. Not just because he was hot, though he definitely _was_ , but because she just...liked him. He was obviously smart, but not the least bit arrogant; if he had an ego she hadn’t seen any sign of it yet. He paid attention to her; in fact, it was almost unnerving, the way he focused on her.

It should have made her jittery, but it didn’t. Usually being around a big guy held an edge of danger; even if they had no intention of doing anything, she always knew they _could_. But Caine felt...safe.

 _Weird. Totally weird_.

Jupiter scarcely let herself think about the whole _came from outer space_ thing, because if she did she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work at all. From the moment she’d figured out she couldn’t go to college, Jupiter had understood the trap of her life--smart but not talented, bored but not driven, wanting to learn but unable to access formal education. Her options were few: work for her uncle for the rest of her conceivable life, work in a series of equally tedious jobs open to undocumented people and wear herself out that way, or marry someone in the same boat and do it all just the same. She’d dreamed for years of a handsome, rich guy to sweep her off her feet and get her a green card, but Jupiter knew her odds were poor--particularly when she kept getting attracted to utter assholes.

Even with Katharine’s help, she’d never found anyone who would treat her right.

_It’s just as well right now. Helping Caine would be a lot harder if I had a boyfriend to deal with too._

The first step was to move him out of the Whitney place, because if he got caught there by a suspicious neighbor or building security, they’d both be in a crapload of trouble. There were homeless shelters available, not that Jupiter knew much about them, but she put them at the bottom of the list. What little she’d heard about them implied that they were hard to get into at the very least.

There were plenty of low-rent, low-quality apartments available if the tenant didn’t care about their surroundings or safety. Something like that, Jupiter thought, might do for a couple of nights, but she didn’t like the thought of exposing Caine to that kind of environment. Sure, if he’d been a soldier he could probably handle himself in a fight, but why risk it--and besides, Jupiter felt a small creeping of shame at the idea of Caine’s introduction to Earth being a dirty little efficiency surrounded by drug addicts and noise.

 _Third option is couch-surfing._ That would definitely be better, especially if Jupiter could find someone who was either very busy or very clueless. She started going over lists of acquaintances as she scrubbed the Mortons’ big shower. _Tommy still owes me for that week last winter, and Cho has the basement room he never uses--might be able to trade him something for that--_

The real need, though, was a job.

_I hate the idea, but...I’m gonna have to talk to Vladie._

* * *

 

It frustrated Jupiter that she wasn’t able to see Caine that evening. Work ran late, and she had no way to get to that neighborhood since Vladie was using his car and the buses didn’t run late enough. But she’d told him not to expect her, and she crossed her fingers and hoped he’d just stay put.

_At least Tuesday’s a two-house day. I can get Mom to drop me off halfway home, and that way I can pick up a few things on my way in…_

Making a list kept her occupied until Vladie sauntered in. Judging by the easy grin on his face, he’d had more than one beer, which pleased Jupiter; it would make him more willing to help her out. “Hey, cousin, got a minute?” she asked, following him into the pit he called a bedroom.

Jupiter was reasonably certain that Vladie maintained a crash pad somewhere that he could bring the girls (and possibly guys) that his parents wouldn’t approve of, which was pretty much all of them. She figured he had to keep that one in better shape than the sock-draped, electronics-stuffed space he slept in; Irina had given up on it long ago, and the rest of his female relations flatly refused to pick up after him.

Vladie cast himself backwards onto his bed and beamed at Jupiter. “Sure, Jupe, what’s up?”

She kept her voice casual. “I’ve got this friend who’s looking for work--off the books, you know? And I’m thinking, he’s like six-two and built, so--”

Vladie paddled his hands against the mattress. “Construction, or security?”

“Huh, I didn’t think of construction, but no. Security, definitely. I think he’s ex-military,” Jupiter added, hoping Vladie wouldn’t ask for details.

“Hmm.” Vladie stared at the ceiling for a long moment; Jupiter wasn’t sure if he was thinking, or just trying to be dramatic. “I know a guy, but it’ll cost you.”

 _Of course it will._ “What do you want? Maid service is off the table.”

Vladie snorted. “Please. Ahh, let’s call it a favor to be determined later.”

Jupiter folded her arms and gave him a pointed glare. “Specifically excluding any setups with your asshole friends.”

“You sure? Because Gordy’s brother is back on the market--okay, okay.” Vladie flung up a hand at her disgusted face. “I admit he’s not exactly a prime catch. Give me his digits and I’ll set it up.”

Jupiter shook her head. “No way, I want to okay it first.”

“Hey--”

She raised both brows. “If I don’t you’ll have him working at that skanky place that gets raided every week. He’s undocumented, Vladie, he has to stay under the radar.”

“Eh, all right.” Vladie regarded her with the familiar smug pity that always made her grind her teeth. “Give me a day or two to set things up.”

“Thanks,” Jupiter said, and left before the swell of envy made her say something she’d regret. _It’s not fair._ Just because Vladie had been born in the U.S., he was a citizen, which meant he had all the opportunities Jupiter wanted.

And he used none of them, preferring to schmooze and scam his way through life--or at least try to. Irina doted on him; Vassily was aware of his flaws, but still usually bailed Vladie out of whatever mess he got himself into, though to be fair, he extracted work from his son in repayment.

 _If it were me, I’d be through college by now. Maybe going for a PhD._ Jupiter knew that was half exaggeration--in truth, she’d probably be working three jobs to repay the loans it would take to get her through school--but at least she’d have that degree. As she made her way downstairs to the space she shared with her mother and aunt, she fought back a swell of despair. _Nothing is ever going to change. I’ll be stuck in the basement for the rest of my life._

_I’m never going to get out of here._

* * *

 

When she opened the Whitney door the next evening, Jupiter was transfixed.

The form moving through the living room with preternatural speed and grace was Caine Wise, there was no doubt of that. But for a long moment she thought he was dancing, and the beauty of it took her breath away.

As he landed on one foot--without a sound--and brought up his arms in a blocking motion, however, she realized it was more like some kind of martial arts practice. Mesmerized, Jupiter barely remembered to step inside and close the door after her as she watched him spin and leap and fight a nonexistent opponent. His movements were almost too fast for her to track, and she wondered vaguely what his military had been like, to train him to do this.

Mostly, however, she was trying to deal with a sudden intense wave of lust, because... _wow_.

As if he were listening to some beat of music that was coming to an end, Caine arced over in a flip, and rolled out of it to end up kneeling almost at Jupiter’s feet, shoulders oddly high. For a long, long moment they stared at each other; he was shirtless, and glistening with sweat, his chest heaving, and she wanted above all else to lean down and lick the hollow of his throat.

And then she remembered his sense of smell, and her lust vanished in a rush of embarrassment. _Oh crap, can he smell **that**?_

At the same time, Caine winced, shoulders dropping stiffly as if something hurt him, and shrank a little. Jupiter shook her thoughts back to a more appropriate place. “That was _amazing,_ ” she told him. “But should you be doing it when you’ve just been sick?”

He snorted, relaxing. “I have to keep in training,” he said, then glanced up so shyly that Jupiter felt her heart melt. “You liked it?”

Jupiter beamed at him. “It was _fabulous,_ I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s part of your military training?”

Caine nodded, pushing up to his feet in one fluid move and taking two of her bags. “Skyjackers are proficient in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Skyjackers? That’s what they call soldiers where you come from?” Jupiter headed for the kitchen, and Caine followed her.

She heard Caine swallow. “It’s one kind of soldier--the best,” he said, and when she glanced back his face was closed.

“Well--I brought dinner,” she said, forcing the change of topic awkwardly. “And a few other things, though we’re gonna have to take you to a department store for some clothes eventually.”

She rummaged in one bag until she found what she was looking for. “Here’s the real goodie, though--a cellphone, you can’t get along around here without one.”

It was a cheap burner phone, all Jupiter could afford right then, but it would let them keep in touch. Caine took it with a curious expression and flipped it open, running a finger across the buttons. “It’s not as fancy as mine, but if you’re going to be working you need a way for people to contact you,” Jupiter explained.

Caine nodded again. “You type in the contact code?” he asked, and she smiled.

“Phone number, yeah, and press the little ‘enter’ button there. Or you can use the memory function and save people’s numbers. I already programmed mine in.”

“Good.” He closed it and tucked it into a pocket in his pants--at least, Jupiter assumed it was a pocket; she couldn’t see an opening. “You brought more food?”

* * *

 

Caine wasn’t quite sure what to make of Jupiter. He’d heard her coming, of course, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to interrupt his workout; and besides, a part of him wanted her to see what he’d once been, the agility and skill he still possessed. _I can protect you,_ that buried voice whispered in her direction. _I can be worthy of your attention._

The scent of her arousal had hit him hard, but it had been quickly followed by something that smelled like shame, and that made sense, because after all Caine was a Splice; half an animal, and no fit desire for a pure human. But he’d also been distracted by the sharp sense of _wrongness_ as he finished his last move, because properly done it would have included his wings spread out behind him in a display of power, and they weren’t _there_. The loss was old enough for his balance to compensate, but it still felt off and always would.

Still, she’d _liked_ it, and that made Caine feel better. Jupiter was his one connection to this world, and pleasing her was important. And besides that, he...just liked making her smile.

Jupiter unpacked her bags and made sandwiches for them, chattering all the while--telling him about her world’s agriculture and her city’s food, how much she hated what she did for a living, and the hopes she had for her cousin’s contacts regarding a job for Caine. Every so often she would stop and blush a little and apologize for monopolizing the conversation, but Caine liked her talking. It was pleasant and informative, and he’d never been much of a conversationalist himself; and besides, she was so pretty, so bright and interested in her topics. He could listen for hours.

“And in the meantime,” she said when they’d finished eating, “I’m getting a place lined up for you to stay for a bit, a couple of weeks maybe if Vladie comes through. It’s not much, just space to crash on someone’s couch, but there’s a bathroom and it’s not like you have a lot of stuff anyway.”

It sounded very...not secure. But deciding to stay on this world had meant that Caine would have to interact with the population, and Jupiter wanted him out of the apartment. He could, Caine supposed, find another such, an empty space, but it seemed better to follow her plan.

The sun was only just setting. Jupiter glanced out the window, then stacked their plates. “Want to get out of here for a bit? You must be sick of being cooped up all day.”

His translation implant had a little trouble with her last sentence, but Caine got the gist of it. “May I bathe first?”

Jupiter shot him an odd look. “Do whatever you need to, dude,” she said, but she was smiling. Caine took a quick shower--he’d learned the word by now--and was back in the kitchen before she’d finished cleaning up.

Jupiter did a double-take when he walked in. “That was like three minutes,” she said. “How did you even _do_ that?”

Caine wasn’t sure how to answer that, since it was the standard bathing time in the Legion--one did not waste time, and even if he enjoyed using real water he would scarcely keep her waiting--but it seemed to be a rhetorical question. “There’s a nice little park a few blocks from here,” Jupiter said, putting the packaged food into the cold storage.

Caine nodded, and followed as she led him out. The air was crisp and edging towards cold; Caine had experienced much colder, of course, but he was still happy to have his jacket as the world’s little star sank behind the horizon. It felt a bit strange, on top of all the other strangenesses, to be wandering around a city at loose ends. Caine had spent his adult life before the Deadland either on a mission or on leave, and to have no deadline for reporting in seemed a slightly unnerving luxury.

Jupiter was silent for a change, leading him on through the deepening twilight to a small patch of land planted with vegetation instead of buildings. It meant little to Caine, but Jupiter seemed pleased with it, and they walked up and down its meandering paths until the lights overhead came on, and Jupiter sat with a sigh on one of the benches.

When Caine didn’t move, she patted the space next to her. “Come on, sit down.”

Invited, he sat, careful not to touch her. Jupiter turned a little to regard him. “Will you...um. Will you tell me what life is like out there?” She waved a hand at the sky, half-lost behind branches and withered leaves. “You don’t have to tell me anything personal, it’s just that I’ve been dreaming about space my whole life and my dad was an astronomer and, well. I can hardly believe you’re real.”

Caine hesitated, not sure how to begin. “It’s...it’s not simple,” he said at last. “Human civilization is vast, far too big and complex to explain. And…”

 _It’s not pretty,_ his mind supplied. It was a new thought. Caine had accepted his life without ever considering anything else, because Splices were bred to serve and that was all any of them could expect.

But the girl sitting next to him...the ‘verse would not be kind to her. Assuming she got off the farmworld, and wasn’t Harvested--and that thought now made his gut clench--she would be of no consequence to anyone, a naive tercie with no power or influence. He’d seen hundreds like her, barely a step above Splices, spending their lives in drudgery. She was better off on this bright little world.

Jupiter was watching him, alight with curiosity, and Caine chose his words carefully. “There are thousands of worlds, hundreds of thousands,” he said. “And each one has its own cultures. The Entitled rule them after a fashion, with money and influence, but it’s really the Aegis that keeps a grip on things. It...there’s a lot of beauty, but also a lot of ugliness.”

Jupiter snorted. “Sounds familiar. What’s the Aegis?”

“They’re like your cops.” Caine shrugged. “It’s better to stay out of their scan.”

“Hm.” Jupiter cocked her head. “So the Entitled don’t really rule, it’s the Aegis?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Caine pressed his palms against his thighs, aware that this conversation was not likely to end well. He didn’t want to lie to her, but-- “The Entitled control a, a substance that extends life. It heals, too, but the life extension is what people want it for.”

“What, like the Fountain of Youth?” Her eyes were wide and fascinated.

“Not a fountain. ReCell is a product; the Entitled grow and harvest it, and then they sell it.” _And don’t ask me how, please, **please**_. “And if you want to stay young, you have to deal with them.”

Jupiter blew out a breath. “That sounds...pretty potent.” Her gaze shifted, and Caine wondered if she were thinking of her own youth, of preserving the softness of her skin or the void-dark fall of her hair, but her lips moved, and he could just make out the name, _Lyudmila._

_Oh. Her grandmother._

“Entitled with access to ReCell can live millennia,” he offered. “It’s part of why they control so much.”

 _“Millennia?”_ Jupiter gaped at him. “Holy crap. Okay, yeah, that’s...really something.”

A muted chime came from her jacket, and Jupiter huffed and pulled out her cellphone. “Gah, we have to head back, Nino’s going to pick me up in twenty minutes and I have to be six blocks from here.”

She stood and fished her keys out of her pocket, detaching two from the ring and handing it to him. “I copied our keys yesterday. You take these and you can get back inside.”

“All right.” Caine rose and accepted them, stowing them carefully in a pocket. He didn’t need them, really, but it would make things more convenient, especially during the day. “Let’s go.”

Jupiter shook her head, smiling up at him. “I’m headed that way.” She pointed up the street, away from the apartment building.

Caine raised his brows. “I’ll walk with you.” He was hardly going to let her go alone, especially in the dark.

She smirked. “Such a gentleman. Okay, sure, if you think you can find your way back.”

He was startled enough to laugh, just a breath of it. “Jupiter, I was a hunter. I can find my way across half a galaxy.”

A blink. “Wow.” Jupiter shook her head again, and reached out to loop her arm around Caine’s elbow. “Come on, we need to get moving--tell me more about space. Do you guys have warp drive?”

For all her care of him earlier, it was still a shock when she touched him. Caine didn’t let himself dwell on the sensation of her arm snugged against his, or tried not to; instead he answered her rapid-fire questions about spaceships, portals, the speed of light, and when she found out about it, veil technology. Her ignorance was huge, but she had a quick mind, and he found it irrationally pleasing that she grasped the overall implications of interstellar travel with no difficulty. The six blocks passed quickly.

Her designated meeting spot was outside a small shop that sold food and drink; the smell coming from it was very enticing. Jupiter unhooked her arm from Caine’s, glancing up. She suddenly smelled nervous.

“Nino’ll be here any minute,” she said. “And no offense, but it’ll be a _lot_ easier if she doesn’t see us together.”

“Of course.” Caine stepped away. “Will you come again?”

“Of course!” she mimicked, favoring him with another wide smile. “Wednesdays are bad, but I should be able to make it on Thursday. I’ll text you.” Jupiter waved her phone. “The manual for yours is on the kitchen table.”

Caine nodded, and didn’t mention that his translation package didn’t include the written word. He’d just scan the manual into his sheave and let it handle it for him.

Jupiter looked past him, down the block, and her eyes widened. “Here comes Nino,” she said, and patted his arm. “Be safe walking back.”

Then she was stepping away, past a couple strolling along the sidewalk, to meet the worn vehicle that pulled up to the curb. Caine faded back, watching from the shadow of the shop as Jupiter climbed in and it accelerated away.

His instincts all urged him to pursue, to not let her slip away. Caine retreated into the nearest alley and activated his boots, rising up the dark passage until he was high enough to go unnoticed by those on the street. Then he breathed deeply, and followed Jupiter’s trace.

It was a simple matter. Even if he lost sight of the car, he had her scent, and he could have trailed her across entire star systems; a few lengths of city were nothing in comparison. The vehicle stopped at a house a few miles away, and Caine slowed to a hover above it, watching as Jupiter and a rounder, older woman climbed the steps to enter. They were speaking in a different language, something liquid and guttural, the woman teasing Jupiter about drinking too much overpriced coffee and not being able to sleep.

Jupiter’s laugh drifted up as they went inside the house, and Caine sighed, feeling...he didn’t know _what_ he was feeling. Only that it was sad.

He was tempted to light on the roof; there was a flat spot that would be an excellent perch for watching over the house and its inhabitants. He could keep her from any harm--

 _No,_ Caine told himself. He didn’t have her permission--she wasn’t even aware he was there--and besides, she probably wasn’t in any danger. The house wasn’t at all secure, and none of the others had visible security measures either, which implied that there was little to protect against.

But it still hurt to leave.

* * *

 

_ENTITLED: RULING CLASS OF THE GYRE. ENTITLED RULE THROUGH MONEY AND POWER, BESTOWED ON THEM BY THEIR NATURAL GENETIC SUPERIORITY. THEY CONTROL THE RECELL TRADE AND HENCE ARE FUNCTIONALLY IMMORTAL._


	8. Chapter 8

The place Jupiter found for Caine to stay was outside his experience. It was an apartment much smaller than the Whitneys’, belonging to a young man Jupiter introduced as “Tommy”. He was almost as tall as Caine, but much less muscled, with a cap of straight hair as dark as Jupiter’s own and narrow black eyes. He shook Caine’s hand with a strong grip and didn’t seem to find him at all unusual, which was heartening.

“Nice to meet you, man. I’m hardly ever here, so you won’t have to deal with me much.” He waved at the space, which was cluttered with books and electronics. “I got three rules: clean up after yourself, flush when you’re done, and don’t eat my food. We cool?”

Caine ran a quick assessment. The apartment stank of nicotine smoke but was otherwise clean, and Tommy showed no signs of deception or fear. “Yes.”

“It shouldn’t be for too long,” Jupiter cut in. _She_ smelled nervous, but not overly so. “Thanks, Tommy.”

“Hey, I owe you for that last time.” Tommy shook his head and pointed at the couch. “There’s your space,” he said to Caine. “You only got one bag?”

Caine nodded. The pack Jupiter had found held the clothes and cleansers she’d bought for him, but the things he’d brought with him were in his pockets. Jupiter might trust Tommy, but Caine preferred to be cautious when it came to his otherness.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Jupiter said. “Vladie swears his setup is legit, so we’ll give it a try.” She reached up to lay a hand on his shoulder, and then--to Caine’s utter astonishment--stood on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his cheek, a brief touch. “If you need me, just text me.”

And then she was leaving with a wave, smelling of embarrassment and apprehension and a bright spark of pleasure, and Caine shut his mouth and wrenched his gaze away from the closing door.

“Nice,” Tommy commented. “If I weren’t gay I’d tap that. Anyway, gonna hit the hay, so you do what you gotta. Bathroom’s down the hall, and remember what I said about flushing.”

Caine nodded again without understanding most of what Tommy had just said, but it didn’t matter; his host disappeared into another room and was soon adding to the nicotine reek. Caine sat down on the couch and stared at nothing, the spot on his cheek still tingling.

He’d managed to control the hunger for Jupiter’s touch, even as she fed it crumbs with her casual possession of his arm while walking, or her shoulder nudging his when she made an awkward joke. But this--this brought it roaring up, and he wanted to tear after her and throw himself at her feet, beg her for more. Just her hands in his hair again, or letting him lie in her lap as she had when he was sick.

It had been simple--habit, even--to deny himself. Jupiter was his rescuer, a patron of sorts, and even if he’d chosen to serve her it was a decision she knew nothing about. And he’d spent his entire life pushing down that desire. A lycantant without a pack learns to suppress the touch-hunger, or goes mad, and that suppression had become as reflexive as breathing.

But her _scent_ \--Caine knew that scent, the first tremulous hint of attraction, the first unfolding of desire. He’d smelled it before in those around him, and again on the streets of Jupiter’s city, passing couples who smiled and leaned into one another.

And she’d touched him on _purpose._

 _She doesn’t know_. It was a new thought. Jupiter’s pretty little world had no idea what a Splice was, or why a pure human would never consider one worth of that kind of attention--except for pleasure Splices, and he was certainly not one of those--no, they had no concept of the gulf between him and someone like her.

_So...maybe...it doesn’t matter._

It was a revolutionary idea, one that could get him killed out in the ‘verse, but there it would never have come to him anyway. Jupiter was all things new, and maybe...maybe he could…

The thought trailed off into shivers, half incredulous pleasure, half a fear he thought he’d left behind. Caine sat motionless and replayed the memory of her kiss, over and over, and felt something new swelling within him. He didn’t know what it was, but...he liked it.

* * *

 

Vladie, Jupiter reflected, was moving up in the world. The club he’d told her about wasn’t half as grubby as she’d thought it would be.

Bocca del Lupo was a basement establishment, one of those with a deceptively small front door and a narrow stair leading down, but it spread out beyond that with a wide dance floor and a long bar. The manager was a cadaverous man who spoke with Vladie in a slang so thick with idiom that Jupiter was a bit lost, but his glance at Caine was approving. After a last exchange he moved forward.

“The job’s simple,” he said to Caine. “You watch for fights and break them up, and you remove anyone the bartenders tell you to. I’m not looking for brains to watch the door, just muscle to keep the peace, capice?”

Caine nodded. Jupiter had made him wear the white t-shirt she’d bought him because it showed off his arms, but he still managed to look exotic in the harsh light of the off-hours club, with his hair braided back and the shadow of the brand on his neck. “I understand.”

“Good. You can start in--” The manager glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes. Don’t be late.”

They climbed back out into the oncoming night. “You _owe_ me, cousin,” Vladie said cheerfully. “See you at home.”

He hurried off down the sidewalk, and Jupiter made a face at his back. Caine gave her a worried frown. “You owe him?”

Jupiter shrugged, keeping it light. “It’s nothing, we trade favors all the time.” Though it gave her a bit of a thrill that Caine cared. “You going to be okay?”

It was his turn to shrug. “It’s simple work, and not the first time I’ve done pacification duty. I don’t anticipate any problems.”

“Hmm, all right. But take care of that pretty face, okay?” Jupiter gave him a cheeky grin and patted his arm, and was floored when he actually _blushed._

It took her a moment to get the conversation started again, and they leaned against the wall and chatted--well, Jupiter did most of the talking--until the time was up and Caine had to report inside. He promised to text her when his shift was over, no matter how late it was, and Jupiter went home, reminding herself to put her phone on vibrate before going to bed.

And trying not to worry. _He’ll be fine,_ she told herself. _He’s a genetically engineered super-soldier who could put Bruce Lee to shame._ She knew that kind of club could attract pretty rough clientele, but Caine didn’t seem concerned.

_You can’t protect him from everything. He’s here; he has to learn how to live here._

But she couldn’t keep from fretting, just a little.

* * *

 

It was cold, up on the roof in the dark, but Jupiter sat there anyway, huddling into her jacket and looking up. Her neighborhood was a rotten place for starwatching, but she didn’t have a lot of other options, and anyway the best equipment she had was an old pair of army binoculars. She really wanted a telescope, but even the mediocre ones were way outside her budget.

Still, even with the light pollution, the sky seemed...deeper. Bigger. More _significant_.

_I still don’t know what’s out there...but I know there’s **something**._

Jupiter had always believed that the universe was full of life; given the sheer number of stars, it was inevitable, even if none of it ever made its way to Earth. But believing wasn’t the same as _knowing_.

She still didn’t know much about whatever society Caine had come from; he dropped little hints from time to time, but he seemed pretty ashamed of his past, and Jupiter didn’t want to push him despite her wild curiosity.

But having Caine around didn’t ease her yearning for space. In some ways, he made it worse; now when her family scoffed at her hobby, she wanted to yell at them about how it was _important. There’s something out there, something more huge than you can possibly imagine, and all you care about is cleaning houses--_

But she couldn’t say that, not without starting another fight. Even her mother disapproved of astronomy, saying only that it had killed her father. Nearly all the stories Jupiter had heard about Maximilian had come from her aunt.

She sighed, and rested her chin on her pulled-up knees. Meeting Caine had been a wild excitement, just from what he _was_ ; and Jupiter was starting to think that maybe _who_ he was could be a sign that her compass was no longer broken. If he felt the same way, anyway. He was amazingly attentive, somehow managing it without setting off any scary-obsessed-stalker alarms, but it always reminded her of the medieval devotion that belonged in stories about King Arthur. Which was cool and all, but Jupiter was kind of hoping for some modern _lust_ mixed in there. It was hard to tell; Caine seemed shy to begin with, and Jupiter had no idea what dating was like in space.

 _Or maybe he’s already got someone. Someone out there, that he had to leave behind…_ It was a chilling thought.

Jupiter firmed her chin, glaring at the stars. _There’s only one way to find out._

* * *

 

They fell into the habit of meeting every few days, after Jupiter’s work was finished and before Caine’s began. Mostly they walked, when the weather was good, often stopping at a little food shop for a drink or a snack. It took Caine about a month to save enough of his pay to afford an apartment of his own, and after that they often stayed there, especially as the weather got colder.

The tiny apartment Jupiter found for him was in a run-down neighborhood, and the building was old as the city’s buildings went, but Caine was content with it. It was his own, and more space than he had ever bunked in before; and while he would have rather had the comfort of a squad around him, there was something to be said for not being a guest in someone else’s territory. Jupiter showed him how to shop for cheap furnishings and helped him give the place a good scrubbing when he moved in, and Caine even thought cautiously about adding a couple of nonessential possessions, like the paper-leaf books that were common on that world or a still picture or two.

It was one such evening that Jupiter broke off telling him about the video stories she referred to as _Star Trek_ , and hesitated, clearly thinking.

“Is there...anyone waiting for you out there?” she asked at last, waving vaguely at the sky. “Family, friends, significant other?”

Caine almost laughed, a raw cough of bitter amusement. All his squadmates had turned their backs on him, and rightly; his commander was mutilated because of him, and even Kiza must hate him now for what had happened to her father. “No.”

Jupiter frowned a little, and he caught an edge of sorrow, of pity. “Nobody at _all?_ What happened to your family?”

“I don’t have one. Splices--” Caine hesitated, but he had to give her something. “Splices are bred in batches. We might have siblings, but we don’t have _families._ And I haven’t seen mine since I was--since I reached adulthood.” Not that they’d ever wanted him anyway, not marred and stunted as he was.

She winced, and he felt his throat tightening in response. It was baffling. He’d stopped caring years ago, accepted that he’d always be alone, so why did it suddenly _hurt?_

“I’m sorry,” Jupiter said quietly, her eyes dark with sympathy, and he suddenly wanted to push away, to _run_ away before she--she--what? “I’m trying not to judge here, but that sounds really sad.”

Caine shrugged deliberately. “I’ve never had it to miss it.”

“Still sad,” she said under her breath, and he wasn’t sure he was supposed to have heard it. “No friends?”

“After what I did--” The words fell out of his mouth without his permission. “No.”

She almost didn’t ask. He could see her hesitating, wavering, before she reached out, and the warm press of her hand on his arm made him want to crawl into her lap again, the desire fighting with his instinct to flee. “What happened?”

He’d fought this all along, because he didn’t want the truth to come out, didn’t want to lose her regard--but it was inevitable, wasn’t it? The thought was acrid, familiar. He was a failure and a criminal, and he didn’t get to keep good things. It was just the way the universe was. “I killed someone.”

Jupiter didn’t even flinch. She just cocked her head, inviting him to continue, and he couldn’t _stop_. “I don’t know why I did it. The truth is, I don’t even remember doing it.” Just the taste of the blood in his mouth afterwards, the sheer _horror_ …

“You blacked out?” she asked gently, and Caine hunched in on himself.

“I don’t remember,” he repeated, his voice gone hoarse and strained. _Coward. Tell her the rest of it, and get it over with._

“It was somebody important,” he said, searching for the right words and knowing there weren’t any. “I--I tore his throat out. With my teeth.”

He felt the shock ripple through her, and waited, eyes blurring, for her to snatch her hand away. But instead it tightened on his arm, a firm pressure.

“Caine. Look at me.” Her tone was equally firm, and he couldn’t disobey. He lifted his gaze to hers, waited for the blow, waited, waited--

“I didn’t know you before, and I don’t know what drove you to that.” Her other hand was on his now, fingers slipping between his to squeeze. “But I know you _now,_ and I’m not afraid of you.”

He’d taken a blade through the ribs, once, and this felt something like it, the shock and the unreality of it before the pain hit. He gaped at her, trying to draw in air and not really succeeding.

She let his arm go and reached up to cup his cheek in her palm. “Maybe it was justified, maybe it wasn’t. But everything I’ve seen in you--” She broke off and bit her lip, cheeks heating, and then continued. “You’re gentle, and kind, and honorable. You deserve better than whatever you’ve had, and--”

It was _impossible_ , what she was saying, but her scent was deep and rich with sincerity, and Caine broke. Shuddering, he bent in on himself, pressing his face against her hand, gripping her fingers, trying not to gasp aloud. Her palm slid away, her arm wrapping around his shoulders and drawing him in, and it couldn’t be real but it _was_.

He clung to her as he had in delirium, burrowing into her softness, desperately clutching and expecting every second to be shoved away again. But Jupiter held him instead, tight and comforting, whispering nonsense against his crown, and it hurt, it _hurt_ , as if he were spilling open and dying all at once.

But he didn’t. And when the pain ebbed and he raised his head at last, and Jupiter kissed his forehead and smiled, Caine felt his own lips curve in response, and his heart swelled.


	9. Chapter 9

Bocca del Lupo was crowded when they arrived, thumping with music and voices and smelling like beer and sweat. Jupiter and Katharine slipped into it easily; it wasn’t their usual kind of place, but Jupiter was flexible and Katharine was always up to try something new.

It had been Caine’s suggestion, actually; he was only working half a shift, and it was Saturday night with no houses to clean on Sunday, so Jupiter had informed her mother she’d be home _late_ and left before Aleksa could protest.

So she and Katharine danced together for a while, drinking cheap beer and enjoying themselves, and it wasn’t long before Caine showed up.

He was an impressive sight, looming out of the darkness of the club like--like something a little more than human, Jupiter thought, an odd tingle running up her spine at the secret she knew about him. The tight black t-shirt showed off his perfect musculature, though his waist was still too trim despite his appetite; the long gold rope of his braided hair swung nearly to his waist, giving him an exoticism that only added to his attractiveness. The points of his ears were hidden, and as long as he didn’t smile too widely, there was nothing to betray his origins. Even the tattoo spanning his arm was just another ornamentation.

And then Caine saw her, and the closed impassiveness of his face was suddenly lit, a tiny smile tilting his lips as he straightened a fraction and came closer. Next to her, Katharine gave a small squeak.

“ _That’s_ your homeless guy? No wonder you’ve been so obsessed!”

Jupiter stuck a friendly elbow in Katharine’s ribs. “ _Shush_. Caine Wise, Katharine Dunlevy.”

Caine bowed just slightly, an action that utterly charmed Katharine to judge by her beaming smile. “It’s an honor,” he said.

Katharine reached out to stroke his bicep. “If you weren’t on duty I would _so_ make you dance with me,” she said, looking up at him coyly, and Jupiter rolled her eyes.

“Flirt later, Katharine. Find us when you’re done?” she asked Caine, who nodded. He didn’t seem upset about Katharine touching him, but he didn’t look pleased either, and somehow that put a warm spot in Jupiter’s stomach.

Caine disappeared into the crowd, and they danced for a while longer, but Jupiter found herself looking around for Caine. He appeared from time to time, smoothing out some dispute before it escalated or removing someone who was harassing various patrons, and Jupiter had to admire his smooth expertise. _He might not have been a bouncer, but he does know how to handle this kind of situation._

When he reappeared, jacket on, Katharine was busy with a tall guy she’d chatted up at the bar, so Jupiter waved goodbye and they went outside.

“Will your friend be all right on her own?” Caine asked as they walked down the street. It was busy with people despite the hour, but the cold air was a welcome change from the stuffy club.

“Oh sure. Her dad’s chauffeur will pick her up when she’s ready to go. How was work?”

They stopped for coffee and kept walking. Jupiter wondered if Caine would like to go dancing some time, maybe at a different place; he probably didn’t know how to dance any Earth dances, but that didn’t stop a lot of guys…

The wrap of an arm around hers was sudden and unwelcome. Jupiter jerked away from Vladie’s sudden arrival, wrinkling her nose at the odor rolling off him. “Dude, how baked are you?”

Her cousin giggled. “Jupe, Jupe-Jupe-Jupe, I am _so_ happy to see you.”

“I bet.” She edged a step away from him, glancing up at Caine and rolling her eyes. He was frowning at Vladie.

“No, really!” Vladie made a snatch for her arm again and missed, almost tripping in the thinning crowd. “I gotta tell you, I have the _perfect_ guy for you.”

“Not again.” Jupiter shoved him lightly. “Vladie, I told you, I hate your hookups. They’re _always_ skanky.”

“Aww, Jupe!” Vladie made puppy eyes at her. “But I already told him you would! You’re not going to let me down, are you?”

Jupiter hesitated. _Maybe this time he won’t--_

From her other side came a rumbling voice that was barely short of a growl. “She said _no_.”

It sent an odd throb of warmth through her. Vladie puffed up like a scrawny chicken. “Fuck off, man, she’s _my_ cousin. You’re just her piece of ass, what makes you think you get an opinion?”

Jupiter braced herself, but Caine didn’t explode in anger; he just snorted, looking down at Vladie with pure contempt. “I’m respecting hers. Something that you seem incapable of doing.”

Vladie sputtered, and Jupiter couldn’t quite smother her smirk. “You heard me the first time, Vladie,” she said; Caine’s support was giving her new confidence.

“Yeah, but--”

Caine stiffened next to Jupiter, glancing back. “There’s a police car right behind us.”

Jupiter couldn’t help the pulse of reflexive alarm, even though she was doing nothing wrong. Vladie, however, yelped and grabbed at Jupiter again. “Jupe, I can’t get picked up, my pockets are full of weed!”

“They’re not looking for us,” Jupiter began, but behind them a siren whooped once, and a light flashed on to pin them. The street around them was suddenly empty.

Jupiter stopped, and looked up at Caine, anguished. “Go,” she told him in a quiet voice. “Caine, use your boots and _go_. They won’t hurt us, but they might _kill_ you.”

He stared down at her, brows drawn together, and then smiled, the slightest curve of his mouth. “Get ready to run,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear, and then turned and bolted--

\--Right at the police car.

Jupiter shouted his name, but he was halfway there before she even thought to grab him. As she watched, Caine ran right up _onto_ the car, boots banging on the hood and then the roof as he leapt over the windshield. She choked back a scream of warning--did he know about _guns?_ \--and grabbed Vladie instead as the cops bolted swearing out of the vehicle.

A burst of blue light lifted Caine up off the car and into the air, and Jupiter tore her gaze away and started running, heading down the block towards the thickest shadows she could see, towing her cousin stumbling behind her and praying _hard_ that Caine would be okay. She heard a couple of shots, but nothing else besides the cops yelling, and then they were careening around the corner and she _couldn’t_ look back.

Twenty minutes later they were on board a train heading in the general direction of home. Vladie was sniveling about how close they’d come to being arrested and how much trouble it would have gotten him into with Vassily, until Jupiter’s temper snapped, worn thin by exasperation and worry over Caine.

“Yeah, you’d have gotten a night in jail, but I would have been _deported_ , Vladie!”

“So? You can speak Russian. You might even like it better there.” Vladie folded his arms and sulked.

Jupiter debated the merits of smacking him upside the head, but before she could make up her mind the train slid to a stop at the next platform and Caine stepped in through the doors.

Jupiter yelped and threw herself at him. “You’re _okay!_ You _are_ okay, right?” she babbled, wrapping her arms around him in sheer relief.

Caine was stiff as iron in her grasp, almost quivering, and then his arms went around her shoulders in a cautious embrace that was so light it nearly wasn’t one. “I’m fine,” he said quietly. “You’re all right?”

Stiffness or not, he was great to hug, warm and muscled, and he smelled so good Jupiter wanted to bury her face in his chest and breathe deep. That felt a little too personal, though, so she pulled back to look up at him. And to smack him hard, right where her cheek had been. “What were you thinking? You could have been _killed._ ”

Caine’s arms dropped back to his sides, and he blinked down at her. “You were in danger,” he said, as if that were a good reason for freaking out two armed police officers and getting himself _shot at._

“Yeah, but…” Jupiter met his eyes, and couldn’t find words to continue. They were so clear and calm, like it really was that simple--like his safety was a good trade for hers, like his life was meant to be risked on keeping her out of a bad situation. “But you shouldn’t…”

 _I’m not worth it_ , part of her wanted to say, but the other part was _don’t throw yourself away._

Caine simply cocked his head, politely waiting for her to finish, and Jupiter sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “For both of us.”

He looked taken aback, as if the courtesy was unexpected. “Um. You’re welcome.”

The moment was suddenly incredibly awkward, but before Jupiter could embarrass herself further, Vladie lurched over to take care of it. “Hey man! I am so high I thought you were flying back there!”

He snorted a laugh and tried to throw an arm around Caine, who stepped aside so neatly that Vladie almost fell. Jupiter rolled her eyes and grabbed Vladie’s elbow.

“Flying? How much did you smoke?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just steered him into a seat. He giggled into his hands, and Jupiter huffed and turned away. _One of these days I’m just going to leave him behind._

Caine moved his shoulders in the odd way he had, as if he were trying to do something besides shrug, and then raised his head to sniff the air as the train began to slow. “We’re almost to your stop.”

Jupiter glanced over at Vladie, who was showing no signs of moving, and smirked. “Then let’s go.”

As soon as they were through the doors she hooked her hand through Caine’s elbow, and he pulled his arm close to his body so that her hand was pressed against him. Behind her, Vladie yelped, the doors slid shut, and she heard a fist smack against glass.

She didn’t look back.

* * *

Technically the tenants weren’t supposed to use the roof access, but when he’d surveyed his apartment building for security and exits Caine had found it easy to get up there. He showed it to Jupiter, because it was sometimes nice to get away from the noise and smells of the other residents, and she loved it, bringing blankets and a primitive viewing device so they could look at the stars when she came to visit.

Caine didn’t really care about astronomy, except as it overlapped with stellar navigation, but he could happily lie next to Jupiter for hours listening to her talk about what she saw overhead. He even ventured a fact or two himself from time to time, mentioning the world circling one star or the battle over another, and she would always fall into an awed silence, contemplating what she would never see.

And she had a habit of snuggling up next to him when the air grew crisp; for the feel of her pressed against his side, Caine would have endured much more. When, greatly daring, he put an arm around her to pull her a bit closer, she chuckled and shifted so that her head was resting on his chest, and he had to shut his eyes and control his breathing for a bit.

As the weather got colder they went up there less often, but if the sky was clear and the wind not too bad Jupiter would ask if they could star-watch, and Caine found he liked those times best of all--better than sitting in his little room, more private than walking the busy streets or eating somewhere that they could both afford.

On the night of the local winter festival Caine wasn’t expecting Jupiter, but she texted to ask if she could come over, and he was happy to acquiesce. It was a clear night, and she brought a flask full of a rich drink laced with alcohol, and they wrapped themselves in quilts and lay back to watch the stars wheel past.

“I didn’t think you’d be coming tonight,” Caine said after a while. Jupiter made an interrogatory noise, and he shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “This is a major holiday, isn’t it?”

Jupiter laughed. “Yeah, but my family doesn’t celebrate it. We’re Jewish--not very devout though.”

“Oh.” Caine deflated. He’d picked up some knowledge about Christmas--indeed, it was hard to avoid--and had talked himself into getting Jupiter a small gift. It seemed only right, given that she had done so much for him, and it was something that friends did, but it had never occurred to him that she might not actually participate in the holiday.

“I’m glad you reminded me, actually,” Jupiter went on, squirming slightly to extract something from her jacket pocket. “Because I got you a present anyway--I mean, _you’re_ not Jewish, and I thought you should have something, it’s your first Christmas after all…”

He could all but feel the heat of her blush, and when she pressed the little package into his hand Caine nearly fumbled it. Nobody had ever given _him_ a gift before.

It was a music player, the sort he’d seen countless people using, and while Caine knew very little about Earth’s music as yet, the fact that he would have time to learn was a wonderful thought. “Thank you,” he managed, and Jupiter laughed and kissed his cheek.

He’d put his own gift for her in his jacket when they’d come up, though he didn’t know the ritual for giving it. “Is it acceptable to give you a gift if it isn’t your celebration?” he asked, and Jupiter laughed again.

“Sure! Katharine and I swap presents every year, she gives me the weirdest things. Last year it was a manicure set from Paris and this year she gave me a gift card to have my DNA analyzed so I can learn about my ancestry. It’s not like I don’t know my own family five generations back or anything--oh.”

Caine handed her the little box and watched as she opened it. Inside was a rounded gem that had come from the knife he’d picked up on the pinnace. “It’s called a toron. It’s not very valuable, but I thought you might like to have something that came from another world.”

Jupiter stared at the stone in her palm for several long seconds, and Caine cursed himself for not thinking to bring up a light as well so she could see it better. “Another world,” Jupiter said softly. “Which one?”

“Phoradi Quartus--different galaxy, you can’t see it from here.” Caine’s nervousness ebbed as he saw her wondering smile. “Is it appropriate?”

She laughed again. “Caine, it’s _amazing,_ thank you!”

Relieved, Caine leaned over to kiss her cheek in turn, to complete the ritual that she’d just demonstrated. Jupiter pulled in a breath as his lips grazed her skin, and then she lifted a hand to his jaw and realigned them so their mouths met.

His mind...shorted out. Caine knew a fleeting instant of incredulity before instinct reared up and took over, before astonished bliss ruled his actions and he leaned in to taste her. Jupiter made a quiet sound against his mouth and hooked an arm around his neck, and Caine held her head carefully between his palms and drank her in.

Later he would marvel at his own audacity, and try to remember the last time someone touched him in kindness, but just then all of him was focused on the sheer _feel_ of Jupiter, the stunning knowledge that...that she wanted him.

_Him._

It couldn’t possibly be true...but it was.

Later, Jupiter held him close and laughed once more. “And I didn’t even bring any mistletoe.”

Caine was too content to even ask.


	10. Chapter 10

“‘Bye!” Jupiter called, and stepped outside hastily, pulling the door shut before anyone could come up with another chore or errand or delay. _I swear it’s like they try to keep me home._

She stepped out into the cold; January made it dark, but it really wasn’t that late, and she had at least a couple of hours before someone would be calling her to come home, we have to work tomorrow, you have no _sense_ girl. It was enough time to go visit Caine, at least; if he could meet her halfway they could spend some time in a nice warm coffee shop and maybe make out a little. Jupiter smiled at the thought.

She was pretty sure no one in her family had clued in that she had a boyfriend--besides Vladie, that was, and she knew he’d slip up and blurt it out at some point, and then there would have to be introductions and it would be so _awkward_ \--but Aleksa probably suspected. It was funny; Jupiter had sometimes hesitated to introduce her boyfriends before, mostly because they were the kind that nobody approved of, but this time it wasn’t her family she was protecting.

_We’re kind of overwhelming. I don’t want to scare him off…_

“Jupiter.” Caine stepped out of the shadow of a parked truck to meet her, and Jupiter grinned up at him, reaching out to take his hands.

“Were you waiting out here?” she asked. “Caine, it’s freezing and I didn’t even text you yet!”

He shrugged, the corners of his mouth curling up. “I’ve been colder.”

His hands _were_ warm, the control gloves a slightly cooler patch against her fingers. Jupiter leaned up to kiss him, knowing he would bend to meet her, and savored the press of his soft mouth, always so gentle. She always had to initiate with him, but she kind of liked it, the feeling of being in control instead of maneuvering around a guy’s libido--and ego.

But just as she was edging closer, Caine jerked away, head snapping up as he pulled in a breath. Jupiter flinched, but before she could ask Caine yanked her against him with one arm, the other hand suddenly holding one of his weird space-guns. “What--” Jupiter began.

“Someone’s here,” he said in a low voice. “I think-- _hunters._ ”

“Hunters?” Jupiter echoed, confused, though she hooked a finger through his belt just to be safe. “I don’t think you mean people going after deer, do you?”

Caine was scanning their surroundings, weapon ready, and she could see the sharpness of his teeth through his snarl. “I told you I escaped,” he said lowly. “I don’t know how they found me this fast--”

Panic swelled in Jupiter’s chest. “Wait, people from space are after you?”

His expression settled into a cold calm, though his eyes were moving. “When I tell you, _run_ ,” he said quietly, in a voice she’d never heard from him before. “Fast as you can and don’t look back.”

“Wait,” Jupiter protested. “Caine, _no_ , I can’t just--”

_“Run.”_

And she was standing alone--Caine was abruptly ten yards away and accelerating, the light building on the soles of his boots. Jupiter hesitated. _I can’t just **leave** him! _

But somehow an anguished _“Please--”_ reached her ears, and she obeyed, bolting for the dubious shelter of the nearest parked car.

The hesitation saved her. When the car exploded, she was still far enough away that all it did was throw her off her feet.

Jupiter hit the street hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. For a few seconds the world spun around her, noise and terror clogging her senses; she couldn’t see properly, she couldn’t breathe, and even when the whirling stopped she couldn’t _think_. She scrambled for coherence, struggling to pull in oxygen, and managed to roll over to all fours. _Caine!_

The car was a bellowing fire; above that Jupiter heard strange noises she couldn’t identify, sharp blasts of sound, but she also heard a roar of anger that she knew had to be Caine. She pushed up to her knees and blinked furiously; the night was full of fast-moving shapes and bolts of light, and she couldn’t _see_ him.

Out of the corner of her eye Jupiter saw something bright hit the street near her, throwing off sparks and smelling vaguely electrical. It took her a moment to realize it was energy of some kind. _What is that, a laser? No, can’t be--_

Another hit closer to her, and then closer still, and her stunned brain finally realized-- _Somebody’s shooting at me!_

Jupiter shoved to her feet and lurched into a run, searching frantically for cover of some sort. Somewhere behind her Caine roared again, and someone else screamed, and the back of Jupiter’s brain wondered absurdly how long it would take before the police showed up. _What are they going to do against **aliens**? _

Light stitched past her to spatter on the street, and Jupiter dodged away from it, nearly losing her footing again. _Crap, crap, where can I go, what about **Caine**?! _

She bolted for the far side of the street, and nearly bounced off the man who suddenly appeared in her path. He was tall and stocky and wore something over one eye; that was all she could take in before he raised what looked like a small _jet engine_ and aimed it at her.

A shadow dropped out of the sky and slammed into him, knocking him several yards away. Jupiter yelped as a hard arm came around her and yanked her up and off her feet.

 _“Jupiter,”_ Caine said in her ear, and she gasped and clutched at his forearm as the world dropped away beneath them. “Are you all right?”

She could only squeak. The noise behind them died away as Caine skated up above the roofs and into open air, and Jupiter managed to keep from looking down.

“Jupiter,” he said again, sounding worried, and she jerked her head in a nod.

“‘M okay,” she managed, hanging onto his arm with both hands. “I think…”

He was wonderfully solid behind her even if her feet were dangling over an increasingly large gap between them and the ground. Caine muttered something she couldn’t quite make out and veered off to the left, still climbing. His motion was more like skating than anything else, Jupiter thought dazedly; her ribs ached from the pressure of his arm, but it wasn’t much compared to the bruises and scrapes of her tumble. “What the _fuck_ was all that?”

Caine literally growled, a low rumble that she could _feel_ vibrating through him. “I was wrong,” he said, sounding downright angry. “We need to go to ground.”

“Sure,” Jupiter said faintly, and gulped. It was too dark to make out many details, but she felt queasy nonetheless, though from the height or the adrenaline she wasn’t sure.

“Here,” he said more gently, and reached around her with his other arm, turning her so that she could wrap herself around him. Jupiter clung without shame, arms and legs both, and squeezed her eyes shut; she felt his warm breath ghost past her cheek, as if he’d bent his head over hers for a second, and then he veered again and started moving faster.

She checked out for a little while, concentrating only on the firm heat of his chest beneath her cheek, the material of his jacket rough against her skin. But the parts of her that weren’t pressed against him were getting pretty cold, and eventually Jupiter pried her eyes open and forced herself to look around.

They were somewhere downtown, cruising past office buildings gemmed with lights; the faint sound of traffic drifted up to her ears, but the icy breeze was louder. Lights poured past on the ground, streaks of color from the cars, and a small bright moon lit the sky.

It was unexpectedly beautiful, and Jupiter found herself smiling at her city, laid out in shadow and gold beneath them. _I didn’t know it could look like this._

They were approaching one of the taller buildings; most of its windows were unlit, and Caine was aiming for one of the darkest spots. He came to a hover in front of a window twice his height, and pocketed the gun he was still holding.

“This should work,” he said, and Jupiter watched curiously as his free hand pressed something against the glass. It stayed when he drew back, and she realized it was one of his steampunky devices just as it began to whirl and hum.

“Is that some kind of glass cutter?” she asked, or started to; the widening _hole_ in the window took the words away as she gaped at it.

It wasn’t quite a space, more like the rippling surface of a pond, but as soon as it was big enough Caine swung them both through it without hesitation. Jupiter flinched, pinching her eyes shut as they passed inside, but she couldn’t even feel the--whatever it was.

Then Caine was setting her gently on her feet, and turning to reverse the device and close the gap. Jupiter wobbled--her knees were very shaky--but after a moment she was stable enough to look around.

It was somebody’s executive office; what she could see of it in the near-darkness looked expensive, and as the hole in the window disappeared, so did the sounds of traffic drifting up from the street.

“We need to get under cover,” Caine said in a low voice, and took her arm. He seemed to be able to see much better than she could, so Jupiter let him guide her further into the room. A door clicked open, and they passed into complete darkness.

“I’m starting to see how you got into the Whitney place,” Jupiter remarked dryly, and heard Caine snort as the door shut behind them. A breath later, light sprang into being in the palm of his hand, and he tossed it gently upward to hover over their heads, a tiny globe that didn’t seem to notice gravity.

It was another office, larger and holding several desks. Jupiter sat down hard in the nearest chair, clasping her hands together when they threatened to shake as well. “Okay...so _what just happened?_ ”

Caine grimaced, and she saw that his gun was back in his hand. “I made a mistake,” he said heavily. “I assumed the hunters were after me.”

It took her a moment to parse that. “Wait, you mean…” Jupiter squinted up at him. “That--me? Why would they be after _me?_ ”

“I don’t know.” His voice was so low she almost couldn’t hear him, and he seemed to be staring at the carpet. “But they were shooting at you, not me. At first.”

It didn’t make _sense_. Out of all the weird things that had happened since Caine had come into her life, this was the weirdest, and it wasn’t helped by the way he was refusing to meet her eyes. Jupiter almost thought he was lying to her, except his shoulders were drawn up tight, like he was expecting to be hit or something.

As if he were _guilty._

And she couldn’t deal with that. Jupiter stood up again, took three steps forward, and put her arms back around Caine, this time in a hug.

“You saved me,” she said, tilting her head back to see his astonished face. “Thank you.”

She felt a tremor run through him, as if he were about to bolt. “I was _wrong_ ,” he said, sounding desperate. “If I’d guessed right, I could have gotten you away right off--you’re hurt because of me--”

Jupiter frowned, and squeezed him more tightly. “Bullshit. If you hadn’t been there, I’d be _dead_.” That much was pretty clear.

His hands lifted to hover over her shoulders, not quite touching, until Jupiter pressed her face to his chest again. Then they settled, light at first, slowly closing tighter until they almost hurt.

She didn’t care.

Caine was shaking, she realized; a fine trembling deep in his muscles that made a hollow space open up in her chest. “It’s okay,” she mumbled into his jacket. “I’m fine.”

His only response was a slow exhalation against the side of her head. They stood there for a long time, until Jupiter noticed her legs aching and reluctantly pulled away.

It was then that she noticed the wet stain on her coat sleeve. “Holy _crap_ , Caine, you’re bleeding!”

He glanced down. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

The hole torn--or scorched--through his jacket showed a raw, bleeding wound longer than Jupiter’s hand. She gave him an incredulous look. “We need to bandage that. Maybe there’s a first-aid kit somewhere around here.” _Can’t take him to an emergency room--bet Mom could do something for him, but right now--_ “Crap,” she said again. “Caine, you said they were shooting at me. Will they go after my _family?_ ”

Caine shook his head. “I doubt it. They would have just taken the house and all of you at once, instead of waiting for you to come out.”

Jupiter blew out a relieved breath. “Okay then.” She looked around the space and started trying drawers at random, looking for something to stop Caine’s bleeding. Most were locked, but a few gave in to her pull.

“So,” she said, rummaging through what looked like someone’s stash of insanely healthy “snack” foods that were mostly chia and kale, “you said you thought they were after you at first. How come?” Because she was out of her depth, she knew it, and the only way to understand what was going on was to ask questions. And she knew this was one Caine didn’t want to answer, but for all they both knew that might be _next_ on the “terrible things happen to us tonight” list.

When she looked up, a roll of tartan-striped packing tape in one hand, Caine was staring at the far wall, jaw locked. “I...escaped,” he said after a moment, the words barely audible. “From prison.”

“You were in prison for...killing?” Jupiter didn’t quite want to say it because she knew it would make him cringe. One of Caine’s shoulders went up in a stiff shrug.

“There was a ship. It wasn’t supposed to be there, but the Aegis missed it...and if I didn’t take it, I knew I would die there. So I did.”

“Good,” Jupiter said firmly. Part of her wondered dimly if she should be upset about running around with an escaped murderer, but she dismissed it. She _knew_ Caine, on a level that had nothing to do with facts about his past, and she trusted him. “See above statement about how I’d be _dead_ without you.”

He flinched, and then gave a tight nod, and Jupiter rolled her eyes and tossed the tape on the nearest desk. “That was a _joke_ ,” she said, and went back over to put a hand on his chest and press a kiss to his lips. “I’m glad you’re here, Caine, however you got here, and still being alive is a bonus.”

It took him a second or two to unbend enough to respond when she kissed him again, but eventually she felt him relax a little and return her kiss. “Still need to treat you,” she muttered after a while. The whole post-stress-adrenaline thing seemed to be an actual _thing_ , and it was distracting.

Caine shook his head, lips grazing her cheekbone. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve had worse.”

Jupiter pulled away and looked at it, turning him so that the little globe’s light fell directly on the wound. “It’s still bleeding,” she pointed out. “Hold on.”

In the end she cannibalized some sanitary napkins, using the packing tape to hold them in place over Caine’s objections. It would hurt when removed, she knew, but surely that was better than bleeding out. She also found some ibuprofen, but Caine refused to take any. With only a small twinge of conscience, Jupiter swallowed two herself. _If my head isn’t aching now, it will be later._ To say nothing of her bruises…

“So they’re after _me,_ but why?” Jupiter said, putting the tape away and wondering idly whether anyone would notice they’d been there in the morning. “Is this a normal thing, dropping down onto a planet and trying to kill the inhabitants?”

Caine got a peculiar look on his face, but shook his head. “Not like this, no.”

Jupiter opened her mouth, then closed it with an effort. _Not gonna ask. Not right now, anyway._ “Okay,” she said instead. “So we’ve got a bunch of, hunters you said, trying to kill me and you too if you get in the way again.”

“One hunter,” Caine said, expression shifting towards hard satisfaction. “At least for now.”

Jupiter raised her brows. “Nice.” The twinge of queasiness got pushed away. _They were trying to kill **us**. _ “But no ideas why?”

Caine pursed his lips. “If I could find that one, we might get some answers. Eventually. But I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Her bright vision of _safety_ popped like a bubble, and a coldness crept up Jupiter’s spine. “I...can’t go home, can I?”

Caine shook his head. A void seemed to open under Jupiter’s feet, and she felt herself teetering on its edge. Trapped she might be by circumstance, but her family had always been _there_ , solid and dependable, even at their most annoying. To be cut off from them--

She sat down on one of the desks to hide the way her knees were shaking again. “So what do we do then?”

“We need more information.” Caine reached into another one of his nonexistent pockets and came out with something that he unfolded again and again, until it was the size of his palm. It looked like a tangle of wire and glass. “This planet’s monitored, which means either those hunters are here illegally, or they have permission. Either way, there should be chatter on the Keeper channels. I should be able to pick some of that up.”

 _On the who what?_ But Caine was frowning down at the device in his hands, and Jupiter decided not to disturb him while he was trying to read, or whatever. It looked like _whatever,_ since he was twiddling his fingers over the top of it and holograms were appearing. Jupiter made a mental note to get a better look later, when things had calmed down, because it looked really kind of cool _._

But in the meantime, she was _thirsty_. _Apparently getting attacked out of nowhere dehydrates you._ And if she was, Caine must be more so.

So she slid off the desk and started looking for a fridge, or at least someone’s stash of bottled water. _And maybe some snacks. Though I’d have to be a lot more desperate to eat kale crackers…_

* * *

_KEEPER: NATIVE OF DIORITE SYSTEM GENETICALLY ALTERED FOR USEFULNESS.  GENERALLY USED AS GUARDIANS, CONSTRUCTION WORK, AND MENIAL LABOR; COMMON IN FACTORIES.  VEILING AND DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES ALSO SUIT THEM FOR WORK ON FARMWORLDS.  ONE OF ONLY TWELVE INTELLIGENT SPECIES TO BE REPURPOSED BY HUMANITY RATHER THAN ERADICATED._

* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Caine to break into the Keepers’ frequency; they weren’t trying to hide it. No native of Earth could understand their language even if someone did stumble across it, nor would be believed if they _did_.

It did take him a little while to find enough transmissions to work out what was going on, and he had to adjust his translation implant at least once; it had never worked well with Diorite languages. As he worked at it, Jupiter brought him a bottle of lukewarm water and two packets of the highly processed sugar cakes that were popular in the city, apologizing with a grimace for not finding more, but Caine didn’t care; calories were calories, and he swallowed them quickly once he’d seen that she had some of her own.

He was reassured, at first, to find out that whatever else was going on, his own presence wasn’t part of it. The Keepers were referring to him as a transient rather than a fugitive, which meant either they didn’t know where he’d come from or they didn’t care--they were very narrowly focused, and tended to ignore extraneous elements.

But as he put the pieces together, Caine felt a chill gathering in his gut. The hunters were after Jupiter on the orders of Lord Balem Abrasax, who owned the planet. And since the Keepers had found her for him, they knew _why_.

_A Recurrence. She’s the Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax._

If Jupiter’s acceptance had been a knife in his ribs, this was looking down to see a hole burned through his abdomen. It meant that not only would the hunters keep coming, and in greater numbers, but that the Keepers would be watching. And there was no place on a tercie world to hide from _them._

 _They probably know exactly where we are right now, and they’re just going to let the tracking teams handle us._ Keepers could defend themselves but they weren’t bred for combat, at least not the kind they would face from Caine. The amount of time Caine and Jupiter had to stay in hiding would be very limited.

And beneath all that was the small bitter knowledge that no matter what happened, his dream of a life with Jupiter was ash.

 _Not just a pure human, but a Recurrence, an **Abrasax** Recurrence. As far above a Splice as a galaxy is a star, let alone an escaped murderer. _ He wasn’t fit to meet her eyes or even speak to her.

_You should have known, you stupid misbred. You should have known that you couldn’t have it. Nothing good ever lasts._

Caine glanced over at Jupiter, who had curled up in a chair and begun drowsing at least an hour ago, her phone idle in her lap. That was good; it gave him a little time to think before he had to try to explain.

_What are you thinking? How can you possibly explain this? That she’s the reincarnation of one of the universe’s most powerful queens, and that because of it her own gene-son is trying to assassinate her? That even if she somehow survives, she’s going to be swallowed up into an endless life of wealth and influence and politics that will make her own world look like squabbling infants?_

_**If** she survives. And if you don’t think of something soon, you straight-gene, she **won’t**_. Caine knew he would die to protect her, that was not in question, but without someone else by her side, someone with authority, she would follow him into death very shortly.

As an owned farmworld, Earth had to have an Aegis marshal assigned to it, but Caine had no idea where he, she, or it might be, and no way to contact them without revealing where he and Jupiter were hiding. _The Keepers might be ignoring me for now, but they work for Lord Balem_. _If I start making a fuss, they’ll be down on us in a wingbeat._ And there was another consideration…

Jupiter’s phone chimed softly. She stirred and murmured something, but didn’t wake, and Caine was grateful. He leaned over to mute the little device before someone in her family could try to contact her through it. _As long as we stay away from them they should be fine--no hunter is going to have authorization to use them as leverage._

He paced for a little while, trying to think, but in the end there was really only one option.

_It’s not that I grudge it; what better use of my life?_

It was what she would think of him afterwards, when it was all explained to her--when she found out just what he’d done, what he _was._ _It’s fitting,_ he told himself. _This was a dream, nothing else, and a hopeless one at that. If you can save her, you should be grateful. It’s what you’re **for**_.

“Mmmmgh. Crap, did I fall asleep?”

Caine turned to see Jupiter stretching in the chair. Her hair was coming out of its tail, falling into her eyes; she had dirt smudging one cheek and a bruise showing on her wrist, and he wanted so very much to pick her up and hold her so close that no harm could ever come to her again.

_No._

“You needed the rest,” he told her gently.

“Yeah, like you don’t?” She gave him a pointed look and sat up, setting her feet on the floor and stretching again. “So did you find out what’s going on?”

Between Jupiter’s questions and her incredulity, it took Caine almost another hour to explain, and he wasn’t sure she truly believed him when he was done.

“All right, let me see if I have this straight. I’m the exact genetic copy of a dead space queen, and that stupid DNA test Katharine gave me somehow tipped off the queen’s kid, who wants to kill me so I can’t take over.” At Caine’s nod, she threw up her hands.

“Can’t I just tell this Balem I don’t _want_ the position, thanks all the same, and have him fuck off and leave me alone?” Jupiter folded her arms and glared at Caine as if he were personally responsible for the whole thing. He bowed his head.

“It won’t work. Lord Balem has a reputation for persistence...and anyway, Entitled trust no one.” _Your Majesty_. Now that he knew what she was, it was an effort to keep those words off his tongue, but the one time he’d let them out she’d flinched. _Please don’t call me that,_ she’d said, and how could he disobey?

“This is _so_ effed up,” Jupiter muttered. “So I’m some kind of royalty--still not sure I believe that part--and the hunters are after _me_. Okay, but what do we _do_ about it?”

“I make a call.” In the end, it was simple. This was what he had to do, so he would do it. “If the Aegis knows what’s happening, they’ll send a ship to protect you. All we have to do is stay alive until they get here.”

“Yeah, but--” Her phone buzzed, and Jupiter frowned and reached for it. “Hold that thought. Yes, Mom, hello--”

It was the perfect opportunity. Caine sent the message while she argued with her mother, and it was done, just that easily. _She saved me. It’s only right that I do the same._

He was done before Jupiter had finished lying to her mother. The ensuing argument had begun in one language and ended in another--Jupiter was a terrible liar and her mother clearly knew that--but eventually Jupiter cut the connection, shoving her phone in her pocket with a pained huff. “Well, _that_ went well.”

Caine refrained from pointing out that it didn’t really matter. When the Aegis arrived, Jupiter was going to be swept up to the stars she’d always looked towards, and while she might eventually get back to her family, it wouldn’t be soon. Instead he ran an assessment on their situation. “If it pleases you, we should look for a more defensible location,” he said carefully.

Jupiter gave him an incredulous look, then slipped out of the chair. Her hand on his chest felt like the weight of worlds. “Caine, what is _going on?_ Why are you acting so weird? Does this space-queen stuff really make that much of a difference?”

He couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out, just a short sharp sound. “You...you have no idea. Jupiter.” Caine had to force the name in place of her title.

Her glare would serve her well, he thought distantly, when she came to rule. “Then _explain_ it to me.”

He didn’t know how to articulate all that she’d become to him, the way she’d been a dream he’d actually believed in. “You are royalty now. I’m a Splice. You don’t know what that means yet, but...out there, I’m a tool. Splices aren’t human, aren’t _people._ Royalty doesn’t associate with them. Not like this.”

The color sank away from Jupiter’s face like a retreating tide, and the sharp smell of fury filled the air. “That is _bullshit_ ,” she snapped. “ _Complete_ bullshit, do you really think I’d--”

The crash of glass in the outer office cut her off. Reflex took over, and Caine snatched her up, bolting through the inner door and waking his boots even as he dove left down the dark corridor. His eyes only took a second or so to adjust, and Jupiter was learning fast--she clung hard to him and didn’t even protest.

Caine didn’t fool himself into thinking that whoever had just broken in wouldn’t track them; all he wanted was a more defensible space, somewhere protected he could put Jupiter while he dealt with their pursuers. And while Earth might be a tercie world, bureaucracy was bureaucracy the galaxies across, and office buildings tended to run along the same pattern.

“What are you looking for?” Jupiter said, voice squeaking a little.

“Someplace small with a back exit.” Caine whipped around a corner just as he heard someone come through the door they’d left by.

“Electrical closet,” Jupiter said immediately. “But I can’t see--”

And he couldn’t read the signs, but the ozone stink of electrical power was easy to find. Caine broke open the door with one kick--stealth was useless just now--and swung Jupiter down to her feet as light flooded the corridor. Someone had brought a beamer, a bigger one than his.

“Here.” Caine handed Jupiter his smaller gun, wishing his best gun was someplace other than under his mattress. “Safety here, and the trigger’s dual-mode; hold it down to string the bolt.”

Jupiter nodded, face white again in the odd shadows, and Caine glanced around quickly. The narrow space was about three times his length and festooned with raw wooden boards and swags of wiring, though only the one at the back of the closet smelled sharp enough to be dangerous. There was no obvious other exit, but neither was there a ceiling, and Caine flashed Jupiter a grin for her quick thinking, even as he heard boots in the corridor. “Here they come,” he said and boosted her up one-handed into the grid overhead.

She yelped, but scrambled up onto the crossbar, and he had no more time to watch her as the first target came into view.

This was what he was made for. With a roar, Caine went to work.

* * *

 

_RECURRENCE: REENFLESHMENT. A GENETIC PATTERN REOCCURRING IN AN EXACT COPY WITHOUT ARTIFICIAL ASSISTANCE. EXTREMELY RARE, AND CONSIDERED A HAPPY AND/OR LUCKY EVENT BY MOST CULTURES. PREEMINENCE OF ENTITLED AND WEALTHY RECURRENCES IS MOST LIKELY DUE TO THEIR ABILITY TO AFFORD MONITORING FOR PARTICULAR GENEPRINTS, RATHER THAN ANY SKEWING OF NATURAL RANDOM FACTORS._


	11. Chapter 11

Watching Caine practice, Jupiter realized, was nothing compared to seeing him actually _fight_.

It was exceedingly awkward, perched on the ceiling grid and trying to keep both her balance and a grip on the gun, and Jupiter blessed the architects for putting in something strong enough to support her weight. But despite the discomfort, the danger, and the weird lighting, she couldn’t look away. Caine was _breathtaking_.

Even in the cramped space he moved almost more quickly than her eyes could follow, first snapping off shots against their pursuers and then moving to hand-to-hand when they got too close. He was a whirlwind, flipping and spinning and almost dancing as he fought, fierce and deadly beauty, and her heart was in her throat as she watched. Part of her was terrified for him, but another part was simply in awe.

She wasn’t sure how many attackers he dispatched--there always seemed to be another one coming--but there were at least three bodies heaped outside in the corridor that she could see even as he dealt with another one. The hulking form went flying away and out of her line of sight, and Caine gave the briefest of glances back and up, making sure she was okay before he turned to take on the next one--someone with blue skin and _two_ knives, holy crap--

A sudden burst of blinding light squeezed Jupiter’s eyes shut, and the _boom_ of an amplified voice made her flinch. She wobbled on the crossbar, almost losing her balance, and grabbed at it with both hands. _Don’t drop the gun don’t drop the gun--_

She couldn’t understand what the voice was saying, but as she forced her eyes back open, blinking furiously to clear them, she saw Caine holding both hands up over his head, and slowly going down to his knees. His opponent was gone.

Caine looked back at her again. “It’s all right, your Majesty,” he said loudly. “It’s the Aegis.”

 _Yeah, and? That doesn’t mean it’s **safe**._ Jupiter stayed where she was.

The corner of Caine’s mouth curled up just a trifle, and he blinked, slow and reassuring. “Please, your Majesty.”

If she couldn’t trust Caine, Jupiter knew she was screwed anyway. Sighing, she switched the gun’s safety on, stuffed it down her shirt to free her hands, and swung down from the crossbar to land on the floor.

The voice that had spoken before said something else, fortunately at a lower volume, and Jupiter heard a snatch of incomprehensible conversation before it spoke once more. “Your Majesty--the Aegis is at your service. It’s safe to come out.”

And _that_ made Jupiter feel like a five-year-old being coaxed. She grimaced and pulled the gun back out, holding it carefully down at her side as she edged around the doorframe and into the hallway.

There were at least _six_ bodies, and a light globe the size of a basketball, and a cluster of people about twenty yards away. They were hard to see because the globe was between them and Jupiter, but as she emerged she heard a murmur of several voices. A tall figure stepped forward and past the globe, resolving into a slender woman in a black sparkly uniform, light glimmering on her cheeks; she didn’t bow, but she gave the impression that she had.

“Your Majesty, I am Captain Diomika Tsing of the Aegis,” she said. “We’re here to assure your safety.”

Jupiter blew out a breath. “Okay, but please call me Jupiter,” she said. “Um...what now?” She glanced at Caine, who was still kneeling, and leaned over to hand him his gun.

Several people shouted, and Captain Tsing snatched a weapon from her belt and trained it on Caine. “Your Majesty!” she shouted. “Please don’t arm him!”

“Wait, what?” Jupiter stared at her, then looked down at Caine. His hands were flat on his thighs, and he shook his head at her, face blank.

Captain Tsing raised a hand to her ear, then straightened. “Lord Balem is sending in a security squad,” she said crisply. “We don’t have an injunction yet--your Majesty, we need to go _now_.”

“Go where?” Jupiter asked, but Tsing was snapping orders at the people further down the hall and didn’t reply.

“This way, if you please, your Majesty,” someone said from behind her--a shorter man with a mane of dark hair and the same glittery uniform. He gestured her forward, and Jupiter took a few reluctant steps.

“What about Caine?” she asked.

“We’ll handle him,” the man soothed. “You’re safe now. We just need to get you off-planet--”

She turned to look back, but the man was blocking her view. “Go, your Majesty,” came Caine’s voice from behind him. _“Please.”_

And she couldn’t deny the urgency in that one word, the same anguish from when he’d begged her to run, so Jupiter let herself be herded down the hall and outside into a beam of blue light that was an elevator in disguise.

The next few minutes were a jumble of strange sounds and sights and smells, a sensory overload that was just short of dizzying. The lightbeam lifted them all up into--nothing, there was only a heat-dazzle overhead, and Jupiter would have liked to see the city again from above, if only to distract herself from the fact that they seemed to be rising into empty air, but she was crowded around with at least three people and they were all taller than her.

When they reached the shimmer, it abruptly became the inside of a--well, it had to be a spaceship, didn’t it? That looked a lot like a small lobby, in fact, but then Captain Tsing materialized out of the crowd. “Welcome aboard, your Majesty,” she said. “We need to leave orbit immediately, but you’re welcome to accompany me to the bridge.”

“What about Caine?” Jupiter repeated, and Captain Tsing shook her head.

“My people have the Splice in hand. Please, your Majesty, there’s no time to waste.”

That wasn’t enough, but if more bad guys were coming it made sense to get out of range, so Jupiter followed obediently as Tsing strode up the corridor leading out of the lobby-space. The bridge was a dark-walled room with an enormous view of night-lit Chicago, and Jupiter scarcely noticed the weird consoles and lights everywhere as she stepped closer for a better look.

 _It’s **gorgeous** , _she thought, enthralled--it had all the beauty she’d seen from Caine’s embrace, but without the terrifying fear of falling. Behind her, people were moving around--and abruptly Chicago _shrank_ , becoming a fragile network of lights below as the ship rose upwards.

“Your Majesty?” someone said at her elbow, and Jupiter turned to see the man with the dark hair. “You might want to take a few of these. We’re going to portal soon, and it can induce nausea.”

He was holding out a cup and a handful of tablets. Jupiter hesitated, because she’d been _raised_ on _don’t take drugs from strangers_ , but-- _If they want to kill me, all they have to do is shove me out an airlock, I suppose._ She took two of the tablets and the cup, and swallowed them down; they tasted faintly of cloves, and the stuff in the cup was just water. The man smiled politely and took the cup when she was done. “I’m Officer Percadium,” he said. “Captain Tsing’s assigned me as your liaison while you’re with us. Anything you need, just ask me.”

 _A second to catch my breath?_ Jupiter smiled at him, wondering what the heck she was supposed to do with a liaison. “Um...where are we going?”

“Orus,” Percadium replied promptly. “Captain Tsing will explain as soon as we’ve portaled.” He nodded at the screen behind her. “If you watch, you’ll see the portal form.”

Jupiter turned back around--and blinked, because the screen was black with a brilliant arc of Earth showing. As she watched, the arc swung past and disappeared to the right, and a moment later something _bloomed_ in the center of the screen, an expanding ring of what looked like gas of some kind, and they sped straight towards it--

Things seemed to _twist_ around Jupiter, and her stomach flipped violently. She gulped, trying to keep her gorge in place, and a breath later everything smoothed out again.

And then it dropped right out of her head, because before her was another world.

_Holy. Crap._

It was like nothing she’d dreamed of, no pristine sphere hiding who knew what alien secrets; it was half-buried in _structure_ , in buildings so tall that they climbed out of its atmosphere. Two separate rings haloed it, and even from so far away Jupiter could see movement and light--they were as artificial as the buildings.

“Welcome, your Majesty,” Percadium said behind her, sounding dryly amused, “to the overpopulated, oozing cesspool we humbly call _home_.”

Some imp in her nearly prompted Jupiter to ask if it was named Mos Eisley, but she was too busy looking at it all to bother.

_Another planet. It’s another **planet** , an **inhabited** planet, I’m really, truly, seeing one…_

* * *

 

The next twelve hours were bureaucratic hell.

Captain Tsing assigned a crew of four, including Officer Percadium, to guard Jupiter while an absurdly nightmarish android (even more absurdly named _Bob_ ) guided her through an endless series of lines. An only slightly less nightmarish android, this one with a female form, was part of the team, and as they waited, and waited, and _waited_ in yet another line, she explained the basics of Entitlement, the Abrasax family, and what taking title of Earth meant.

Or started to, because Jupiter kept having more and more questions, which Officer Chatterjee answered with cool, inhuman patience. When she got to the part about what Earth was _for_ , Jupiter almost threw up.

By the time they were finished, Jupiter was footsore, starving, and dizzy with lack of sleep, and even having a hologram implanted in her wrist was hardly enough to wake her up. _Gotta ask the captain about Caine,_ she told herself as they boarded the shuttle back to the spaceship, but she was asleep before they reached it.

* * *

 

_RECELL: BASE OF TRADE AND SOCIETY WITHIN THE GYRE. ALSO KNOWN AS REGENEX, NECTAR, HEAL-ALL (FOR MORE NAMES SEE APPENDIX 12/4-5A). SERUM REFINED FROM FARMED HUMANS; CAN REGENERATE THE BODY AND RESET CELLS TO THEIR ORIGINAL PRISTINE STATE, BUT MORE WIDELY USED IN DILUTED FORM AS A HEALING AGENT. CAN BE USED TOPICALLY OR AS AN INHALANT. CAN BE USED INDEFINITELY TO PROLONG LIFE. MANUFACTURE, PRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION CONTROLLED SOLELY BY ENTITLED._

* * *

When she woke, it was in a narrow bed in an austere room. Jupiter lay still for a while, sorting through memory and trying to figure out what was real and what was the remnants of some really _strange_ dreams. It wasn’t until her stomach woke as well, and started not only growling but snarling, that she sat up.

 _It’s the captain’s cabin._ She did remember that much, Tsing giving up her quarters to her exalted guest and Jupiter too exhausted to argue about it. Now, when she looked around, the dim light brightened and she saw a neat pile of clothing on the small table nearby.

_Good, because yesterday’s stuff will just about need a flamethrower to get clean._

She staggered into the little bathroom, managed to figure out how to work the fixtures, and came out feeling a lot more prepared to face whatever was beyond the cabin door. _Which could be anything. I have no idea what time it is, where we are, or what to do next, or how I’m going to explain all this to my family. Geez, they must be having a meltdown by now._

But as she pulled on the clothes--an Aegis uniform without the rank markings--she knew one thing. _I have to find Caine._

Jupiter fumbled with the door, managed to get it open--and nearly fell over the crewmember waiting outside. The young man had bright eyes and some kind of mask over his mouth, and he bowed slightly when he saw her. “Your Majesty,” said a smooth electronic voice. “I’ve been assigned to escort you. Captain Tsing asks that you join her as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jupiter began, and then wobbled as her head spun. “Um. Can we start with breakfast?”

Captain Tsing met her in the mess room, where Jupiter was ignoring the weird purple tint of the hot cereal in favor of getting it inside her as fast as was polite, all while scanning through the steampunk tablet full of Entitled rules that she’d been given the day before. She wiped her mouth hastily as Tsing dipped her head, and when the captain remained standing, Jupiter pointed at the chair opposite her. “Want to sit?”

She felt brash and awkward, but Tsing merely repeated the nod and took the seat. “Thank you, your Majesty. How are you today?”

“Better, thanks.” Jupiter swallowed another bite. “I feel like I’m cramming for a test here.”

Tsing unbent enough to raise a brow. “You are.”

Jupiter snorted. “Look...I _really_ appreciate your rescuing me and everything, you have no idea how _much_ , but before I do anything else I really need to see Caine.”

Tsing frowned. “Your Majesty, he’s safely contained. I understand that you’re grateful to him for his defense of you, but he’s scheduled to be transferred to another cruiser shortly for processing.”

 _Wait, what?_ “Processing? What does that mean?”

Tsing’s mouth set in a hard line. “The Splice is an escaped criminal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Deadland and needs to face justice for his additional crime.”

Jupiter felt herself slipping from a rising anger into a weird chilly mode she hadn’t experienced before. “Yeah, about that,” she said. “What exactly happened with him?”

Tsing blinked, light catching on her facial implants and glittering. “I only skimmed his file when his call came in, but he attacked and killed an _Entitled_ without any sort of warning. The only reason he wasn’t executed was because his commanding officer negotiated a deal for him.” She grimaced. “Apparently Wise came across a stranded smuggler vessel in the Deadland and hijacked it to escape.”

Jupiter flinched inwardly at the word _hijacked_ ; despite Caine’s fighting skills, she couldn’t really picture him holding anyone at gunpoint and forcing them to help him. _But he had to be pretty desperate._ “Did he hurt anyone?”

Tsing turned up a hand. “We don’t know. The passengers were all dead by the time the vessel was retrieved, but they seem to have died from an illness.”

 _Huh. That explains some things._ “He had it too,” Jupiter said softly, thinking back. “Like the flu or something.”

She ate another bite, scarcely tasting it, then set her spoon down. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He’ll be placed in custody until resentencing, and then he’ll be executed.” Tsing’s voice was laced with venom. “He should have been put down originally, I don’t know why they lessened his sentence…”

Jupiter’s head was ringing with a strange combination of fury and cool deliberation. “Captain,” she said, “I need one of those sheave things, a blank one.”

Tsing glanced over at the young man who was Jupiter’s escort, waiting patiently by the door, and he vanished through it. Jupiter scooped up more cereal--she was still hungry--and paged rapidly back through the device she was reading, cursing the fact that she didn’t know how to use its search function. _I know it’s here, I **saw** it-- _

But by the time he returned with the palm-sized device, Jupiter was ready. She used the little attached stylus with a silent prayer of thanks that the thing could read English, wrote out her order in clear, simple words, and held her wrist over it.

It was fascinating to see the symbols on the screen rise up to meet the faintly glowing tattoo on her arm; there was a muted flash, and then the symbols sank back down onto the tablet’s surface, subtly different. _There_.

She handed it to Captain Tsing, keeping her face calm while her heart beat wildly. _I don’t know if this’ll work, but I have to **try** \--_

Tsing took it and bent her head to read. It was interesting, one corner of Jupiter’s mind noted, to see her color change to near-gray. “Your Majesty...you can’t possibly be serious.”

“Is it legal?” Jupiter leaned back and folded her arms, because she was ninety-nine percent sure that it was. Well, ninety-seven percent.

“Yes--but--” Tsing took a deep breath, and visibly reached for control. “Your Majesty, you are new to the greater universe, and it may be that you don’t understand. Wise is a Splice. Splices are--not human. They’re bred for specific purposes, and they don’t deviate from them.”

She set the sheave down. “What Wise did was a horrific, unforgivable crime. He’s little better than an animal. I understand that you’re _grateful_ , but--”

Jupiter wanted to reach across the table and _smack_ her. “I don’t care.”

Tsing gaped at her. “You--what?”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Jupiter repeated. “I don’t care what his punishment was, and I don’t care that he’s a Splice. I’m pardoning him.”

She fixed Tsing with a glare, hoping to imitate the stare of her mother’s that quelled even Vladie. “I want him released _right now_ , and I want to see him.”

Tsing started to speak, stopped, and then shook her head. “Very well, your Majesty.” Her voice was grim, but she pushed to her feet, picking up the sheave and departing.

Jupiter blew out a breath and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them, she glanced over at her escort, but his mask hid his expression and he said nothing.

* * *

The little cell was hardly big enough to stand in, and held nothing but a water dispenser, a sanitary slot, and a bench, but it could have been worse. Caine was grateful that the Aegis had left his limbs free when they’d shoved him into the tiny space.

He’d spent the subsequent time trying not to think too much. It was easy enough; he slept for some time, curled up awkwardly on the hard bench, and tried to clean off a bit of the accumulated grime and blood using the trickle of water from the dispenser. The makeshift bandage had stopped the bleeding enough for his wound to start to scab over, and he was resistant to most infections, so he peeled it off and set it aside.

And waited.

He knew what was coming. The only uncertainty was whether the Aegis would simply take him out and shoot him, or save him for a public execution. No one had ever escaped the Deadland; if news had gotten out, they’d have to make an example of him.

But he’d known that when he’d made the call to the Aegis. The escaped murderer they’d been searching for _and_ an emergent Recurrence--that had brought them faster than a tachyon stream. He’d _succeeded_. His life for Jupiter’s--it was a fair trade.

Caine tried to keep her out of his thoughts. The fragile dream he’d harbored, small as it had been, was done. Jupiter was beyond his reach--had _always_ been beyond his reach, and he was a fool to have ever thought otherwise.

There was nothing left, and shortly there would be nothing left of _him_ , either. It seemed fitting.

The click of the lock opened Caine’s eyes, and he straightened on the bench. He wouldn’t resist, whatever they did--

The vessel’s captain was in the corridor, radiating astonishment and rage. “Get him out,” she said impatiently, and Caine got to his feet and let the two burly crewmembers yank him out of the cell. He was expecting the heavy cuff-plate they fastened onto his wrists, but not the moment when the captain stepped in front of him and looked up, practically vibrating with restrained fury.

“Caine Wise,” she said, the words clipped, “you have been pardoned for your crimes by her Majesty the Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax. You are hereby released from all unserved punishments, and ordered to her presence.”

_...What?_

Caine barely felt the shove as the guards propelled him down the corridor. His mind was spinning in circles, trying to find the trap, because there had to be one somewhere. Things like this didn’t _happen_.

Jupiter was in the officers’ mess with one attendant, looking somehow regal despite her simple clothing and her nervousness. He wanted to drink in her scent, but instead he breathed shallowly. _Don’t let it happen again,_ he told himself as she ordered the guards to remove his cuffs despite their objections and then told them to get out. _She’s royalty now, she probably just wants to…_

But he couldn’t think _what_ she would want of him, and that’s when the door slid shut and his arms were suddenly full of Jupiter.

Caine held her carefully, still dazed, and kept his gaze on the far side of the room despite the tight wrap of her arms around him and the surging relief in her scent. He knew he should shake her off and step back, he was nothing she should be touching and filthy besides, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

It took a while for her grip to loosen, and when she lifted her head to look at him Caine dropped his hands to his sides. He felt her breath on his throat when she spoke. “Caine? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Your Majesty,” he said, unable to use her name now that she’d taken up her power. “Thank you for my pardon.”

Jupiter stepped back. “Bull _shit_ you’re fine,” she snapped, and one gentle hand tilted his chin down so he would meet her eyes. “Caine, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what they’d done to you--if I’d had any idea I would have gotten you out of there _hours_ ago.”

Caine blinked. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s what I deserved.”

Jupiter actually growled at that. “Nnngh. No, you _didn’t_ , but we can argue about that later. Look, Caine…”

She let him go entirely and looked away, suddenly uncertain. “I claimed my title, that’s what they called it, because it was the only way to keep Balem from just killing me and turning the entire population of Earth into a bunch of youth serum, but frankly I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

She bit her lip, obviously uncertain. “I _do_ know that if I’m going to make this work, I’m gonna need help.”

Caine tucked his hands behind his back. “I will be happy to serve you in anyway I can, your Majesty.” And it was true; she’d just handed him back his life, and he was already bound to her, and even though he would just be a Splice in her eyes, that was proper, after all. And he would get to breathe her in, every day he was near her.

Jupiter frowned at him, looking--hurt. “No! I mean--no, I don’t want a servant.”

Caine shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Jupiter waved both hands. “I want--I _need_ \--a _friend_. An equal. Somebody I can talk to, not order around.”

 _Oh_. It shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it did. “In that case, you need a pure human. Splices aren’t equals.”

“Yeah, that’s crap.” Jupiter reached up and laid a tentative hand over his heart, and Caine barely kept himself from leaning into it. “I know this whole setup is crazy, and it’s probably going to be dangerous, and if what everybody keeps telling me about Splices is true, it’ll be ugly too. But I thought we were friends, and I really, really want you to stay. _If_ you want to,” she added hastily.

She was so small, came the irrelevant thought; so small to hold the weight of worlds, so fragile to turn everything he knew inside out with just her words. Did she even know what it was she was offering him?

He couldn’t fly any longer, but he felt light all the same. Maybe it was a dream, maybe it would get taken away again, but he had the odd feeling that if it were Jupiter wouldn’t stop until he was with her once more.

Caine bowed his head, and it wasn’t until he felt the warmth of her skin that he realized his hand was covering hers. “I want to.”

Her smile bloomed, and this time when she hugged him Caine returned the embrace. He knew that it was all impossible, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, and oh she felt good in his arms; she felt _right_ , as though she really did belong there.

And when she kissed him, he sank into her touch, because even if it _was_ impossible, his dream was truth again.

It was quite some time before he thought to ask. “Your Majesty?”

Her brows went up, but she didn’t protest. “Mmm?”

“You said you were going to need help. If--if you mean it, what you said about Splices--”

“Of course I do.” Jupiter pressed a quick kiss to his chin. “What are you thinking?”

Caine exhaled. “There’s someone I know--two someones--who might be useful.”

Her grin lit up her face. “Seriously? Who are they?”

* * *

 

Two days later Caine was clean, healed, and shaking his head over the fact that Stinger and his daughter had been practically under his nose the whole time he’d been on Jupiter’s planet. But as they stood on a rickety porch surrounded by frozen fields, Kiza’s arm around Caine’s waist and his across her shoulders, and watched Jupiter relight the hope in Stinger’s eyes, he knew this was better.

Nothing about the future was going to be easy. But he wasn’t alone any more; he had a pack, and a place, and a _purpose_.

“Hey, Caine,” Jupiter said, grinning over her shoulder; next to her, Stinger wore a dazed, rusty smile. “Why didn’t you tell me the wings were replaceable? We’re going shopping as soon as we get back up to space.”

Caine took her outstretched hand, and felt the last of the Deadland fall away.

He had _everything._

 

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, yes, done for the WIP Big Bang (note to self: next time, choose the _shorter_ one); this is why _Rise_ hasn't been updated. Back to our regular unscheduled story tomorrow. 
> 
> After a nap.


End file.
